The Windows 7 RTM Rogue Pixel

Microsoft has informed of a Windows 7 RTM-related issue in which users will notice that a rogue pixel will appear on their screens. A white dot can be displayed on the top-left corner of the screen for Windows 7 computers that are running under a Windows Aero theme, but for which the customers have disabled transparency. Disabling Aero transparency is one of the key actions that users can do in order to squeeze a little more performance from their computers into scenarios in which the hardware requirements of Windows 7 are not exactly met.

According to Microsoft, “one white dot (1 pixel in size), may appear on the top-left corner of the screen in the following scenarios: in Windows 7 Home Basic Edition, the issue may occur after a user selects the "Windows 7 Basic” color theme and changes the wallpaper. In Windows 7 Ultimate and other editions listed in the "Applies to" section, this issue may occur after a user selects an Aero theme and then un-checks “Enable transparency”.”

I’m running the Ultimate SKU of Windows 7 and just checked for this issue, and indeed it’s just as Microsoft described it. It is important to know that noticing a white pixel in the top-left hand side of the screen, is not a defect in the monitor, but simply an issue with the Redmond company’s latest iteration of Windows.

Microsoft has so far confirmed the problem, but this is all that it has done. For the time being, users that are going to run Windows 7 RTM with “Enable transparency” unchecked will be experiencing this issues, without being able to do anything about it. The software giant hasn’t said when or even whether it is planning a fix for this issue.