According to Microsoft

Apr 15, 2010 14:42 GMT  ·  By

Apparently, swapping the Aero and Basic themes of Windows 7 repeatedly is not such a great idea. Microsoft warned customers that multiple, back and forth changes between Aero and Basic would cause the operating system to act up. Specifically, customers will find that their copy of the operating system will no longer allow them to select the Aero GUI at a certain point. Essentially, Windows 7 will remain stuck on the Basic theme. The software giant revealed that all the editions of Windows 7 that supported Aero were impacted by this issue, and warned customers that it had yet to resolve it, although it was aware of and working on it.

“Consider the scenario where you decide to change personalization settings for your display in Windows 7 and you do so several times between the Windows 7 Basic and Windows 7 Aero themes. After several iterations between those two themes, your display may no longer change and the ‘Please Wait’ dialog box will no longer be displayed while a change is processing. Your display personalization will remain in the Basic theme,” Microsoft informed.

The Redmond company has yet to get to the bottom of this problem. According to the software giant, “The root cause of this issue is under investigation.” In this context, Microsoft has yet to provide a hotfix or an update capable of resolving the issue. And while the problem is being investigated, end users need to fend for themselves. Fortunately enough, a very simple workaround has already been documented by Microsoft.

“You can workaround this issue by selecting the Windows Classic or any of the High Contrast themes, then waiting for the ‘Please Wait’ dialog box and processing to finish, and then select the Aero theme of your preference,” the company advised. I’ll make sure to provide and update once Microsoft offers a fix for this problem. Windows 7 90-Day Eval VHD is available for download here.
Another Windows 7 RTM Enterprise 90-Day Evaluation is available for download here.