Windows aero and basic themes disabled

Question

I'm having a problem where I can only select the windows classic theme or one of the high contrast ones (all the rest are grayed out). The automatic troubleshooter doesn't find any problems and my windows experience index is a 5. I also have another machine with the exact same specs and it is running aero just fine.

Are there any settings which disable the aero and basic themes which I can check?

Answer 1

Check also the "Themes" service status. If the service is turned off, you won't have access to any other themes than "Classic".

You can find it under "Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services Console":

Answer 2

Use cmd to run

Rundll32 dwmApi #102