Windows 7 glass-like Aero feature - unable to enable

Question

I have a 4 months old PC with Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

• Windows Experience Index is 5.4.
• Intel i5 processor
• 6GB memory
• nVidia GT220 video card.

During games, Windows reported shortage of system resources, so switched the desktop back to "Windows 7 Basic" desktop theme. After game-over, I could switch back to the normal theme and enjoy all Aero eye-candies. However, lately the glass-like window transparency feature got disabled, and I found no ways to enable it again.

There is a Troubleshouting option in Control Panel saying: "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects". If I launch that, it does not find anything.

Event viewer is full with the following warnings:

 The Desktop Window Manager is experiencing heavy resource contention. 
 Scenario   :   The Desktop Window Manager responsiveness has degraded.

Taskbar, window borders, etc, none of the other transparent features work, and I cannot turn them on. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I found the source of the error: QuickTime Launcher (on the system tray). As soon as I kill the process, transparency comes back. Steve Jobs was right: Adobe is lazy.

Answer 2

That's a tough one, but here's a few ideas:

• Try re-running the Windows Experience Indexer.
• Try using MSConfig to disable all non-essential programs (to see if one of them is causing the problem).
• Try using System Restore to go back to a point when it WAS working right.
• Try updating (or reinstalling) your video drivers to the latest version.
• Try a new video card and/or RAM (by this point I'd take it back to where you got it and get them to figure it out, as most 4 month-old PCs are still under warranty, and they should have extra hardware to test with).