• Annoying Display Changes (WIndows XP Pro)

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    #389230

    This topic must have been covered but with the search engine down, etc, etc….. I apologise in advance.

    We recently changed over to XP (pro) and everyone in the office made up their own settings and favourite ways of doing things as usual. I (as the only administrator) decided I liked the XP settings after a period and set them accordingly. However, they absolutely refuse to stay put. When I log on at first the screen colours look odd and then at some ‘random’ time a wee blue thing comes up, gives a squelch sound and asks me to wait (usually 10 seconds or so) during which time I can’t do anything. The end result is the colours are normal but are all switched back to boring old grey. I understand that some of this is a ‘feature’ in XP but what am I missing?

    Some days I go into my home page which looks ghostly, huge and horrible (font size about 48 or so) and it will only change to normal after some time of surfing .

    Is it a driver problem or are there some other settings I need to change? Any help will be highly appreciated as it is driving us all batty. bananas

    Brian

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    • #686763

      I’m not real clear, Brian – is it that multiple users are logging in to the same workstation and display settings are different for each user, or are you the sole user of this workstation?

      • #686894

        Hi Mark

        We have an intranet of 5 PCs in the office and only one PC connects directly to the web.
        This is the PC running under Windows XP I refer to.

        All 4 users log on to this PC when they want to connect to the net and everyone has different settings in their profiles.

        Brian

        • #686898

          I assume you’ve done the obvious virus and spyware scans, with current updates?

          If so, one thing that could be adding to your display “issues” could be users (re)setting the display resolution to suit them. XP, by design, forces all users to live with the latest resolution setting, rather than remembering individual ones.

          • #686944

            Yes we have the latest antivirus, etc.
            Your suggestion about the other users probably has some validity although they tend not to tinker much.

            The wee blue screen and jump back to standard windows display has happened even if I log off and then back on again a few minutes later . In fact everytime I log on I have to wait for the display “feature” to kick in. As I say this can be several minutes into a session.

            Brian

            • #687066

              Any chance of capturing this “wee blue screen” (eg with [Alt]-[Prt Scr]) for us to see? Other than that, the only other thing I can think oof is that someone has installed some “enhancement” on the PC that is part of the start up set.

            • #687413

              Forgot to mention that the exact same phenomenon occurs on my home PC but much faster (better machine). Basically it goes as follows:

              I have my display set for XP in the usual blue surround.
              I start surfing or doing some other activity
              I hear a ‘squelch’ sound
              The small blue screen with ‘please wait’ appears
              The display fades towards monochrome
              The blue screen disappears
              The screen returns to colour but now the XP blue has changed back to oldsyle grey.

              I checked all the settings and they appear to be what I want but they will not stay that way. I can live happily with grey but do I have to?

              I have managed to capture the screen from work but I’ll have to send it later.

            • #687456

              It his time related? Time after boot – you have some program running Or time of day – check for scheduled tasks.

              Joe

              --Joe

            • #687537

              Doesn’t appear to be. I am usually the first to log on to the PC in the morning then I log on to the web. Nothing is running except IE and OE. The ‘event’ takes place anywhere from about 3 to 10 minutes.

              The same thing will happen anytime I log into my profile. The others in my group say it does not happen to them.

              The phenomenon also occurs on my home PC but it is barely noticeable and my home page at home never looks as odd as the one displayed in my other post.

            • #687552

              That sure looks like a theme change. Have you examined all the various startup locations to make sure a program you aren’t aware of is not being run.

              Joe

              --Joe

            • #687584

              Not sure why there’s such a delay, but I think Joe’s diagnose sounds the closest to the truth so far. The other alternative is that someone has scheduled a task to start after you logon and change your theme.

              To check out your startups, you can use Startup Control Panel, and Scheduled tasks is via Control Panel.

            • #687795

              In XP Professional there is the Power Toys option of having the display change every 30 minutes or so. I recently downloaded the power toys in hope of making screen more user friendly. It had the opposite effect and became very annoying until I realised what was happening and ran the power toys option from Program>Windows XP Power toys.
              When you open the application you’ll see that you can spec the display to change to a picture from your pictures folder or have the screen stay precisely as you choose it.
              Hope this helps.
              Alan
              Cheshire
              UK

            • #687534

              Sending the enclosed which are before (wee blue screen) and after screen shots.

              The change took place after surfing and checking emails for 10 minutes. No other programs were running except MSN mesenger.

            • #687535

              Now the infamous “wee blue screen” .

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