Windows 7 help

[HSSB]

I was halfway through a call on Skype about half an hour ago and a little bubble popped up down the bottom near the time that said the theme or something had changed, I didn't think much of it and just then I realised when I hover over the program on the bottom it has a list of the windows open instead of a preview and the bottom bar has changed colour, it's no big deal but it's annoying, how can I fix it?

 

[Gibbsy]

Not an expert, but if you didn't change the theme yourself, you might have a virus

 

[HSSB]

Not an expert, but if you didn't change the theme yourself, you might have a virus

Ohhhh shit that wouldn't suprise me. If I do, what do I do?

 

[Gibbsy]

Ohhhh shit that wouldn't suprise me. If I do, what do I do?

Well have you been downloading files from fishy websites, looking at "enjoyable" content etc?

Also are there any symptoms apart from this? Slower performance, hidden files, extra icons in the notification bar? I can't really help if I don't know what's wrong.

 

[HSSB]

Well have you been downloading files from fishy websites, looking at "enjoyable" content etc?

Also are there any symptoms apart from this? Slower performance, hidden files, extra icons in the notification bar? I can't really help if I don't know what's wrong.

Yeah I did download one 'program' last night actually haha.

It's been really slow when I was trying to scan the computer for virus' etc and froze about 10 minutes ago but I turned it off and back on and the theme is back to normal for now.

 

[Biggy_Boy]

If you suspect you have a virus, download and run MBAM and see if it picks anything up. It might be a good idea to reboot into safe mode before doing the scan (restart then tap F8 as it's booting, then select safe mode).

It's odd if it's not virus related, but you can fix it easily enough. Right click on the desktop, click personalize and select aero (assume this is what you were using).

 

[HSSB]

If you suspect you have a virus, download and run MBAM and see if it picks anything up. It might be a good idea to reboot into safe mode before doing the scan (restart then tap F8 as it's booting, then select safe mode).

It's odd if it's not virus related, but you can fix it easily enough. Right click on the desktop, click personalize and select aero (assume this is what you were using).

I downloaded Malware Bytes before after reading one of the stickied threads and it didn't pick anything up after scanning 30,000 files before I had to restart for AVG, I'll try again now though.

I can't remember what I'm using but it's back to normal anyway.

 

[Gibbsy]

Yep MBAM gets rid of just about anything although luckily I've never had to use it before. Just over a month on the new laptop and so far not a single virus

They're not hard to avoid if you just browse smartly.
Make sure you have an active anti-virus scanner running with real-time protection. I used to use McAfee until I found that it was slowing my computer a lot by running full scans everytime I booted up... Microsoft Security Essentials is actually really good for a free program and I use that now.

 

[dylan123]

My guess would be 'aero' has been turned off. Right click your desktop, click 'personalize' and you should see a set of themes and a heading "aero themes" click the windows 7 and set that and hopefully that should change it back to how you want it to.


Edit: Just changed mine to see what it would do without aero on and it did exactly what yours is doing, so the above should work. Why this happened, who knows, there are many reasons for that to happen which are not always viruses. Sometimes its when a task doesn't end properly, you put your laptop on power saver mode etc. It doesn't hurt to run a virus scan anyways but I don't think that's what caused the issue personally.


Anyways, let us know if the above fixes your issue.

 

[Borgsta]

It's not a virus you just ran out of memory so it switched off aero. When you reboot your PC it will be back to normal.

 

[HSSB]

Thanks guys, my computer is taking a little longer to start up but apart from that it's back to normal.