Is it possible to disable aero on Windows 7 without admin rights?

I want to disable aero, however I don't have admin rights the admin has blocked Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Personalization and I haven't found another way to do it, does anybody know if it's possible?

DarkAjax

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 1 016

Answers

Without administrator rights you can't enable/disable Aero from command prompt or hack the registry. But how about right click on the Desktop→Personalize and then choose the Windows 7 Basic or classic theme. I think you can do this without Administrative Rights.

Devid

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 5 566

I wish I could, even that's restricted... – DarkAjax – 2013-03-05T22:36:55.627

2On my Windows 7 i can do that without Administrator rights, but it seems that the Administrator changed the group policy on your PC. That means there is no way to change the design with restricted rights. – Devid – 2013-03-05T22:41:34.987

the command to stop Aero is

net stop uxsms

But it wont work without admin rights

grvpanchal

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 748

If you can find a way to execute the following command, you should be able to open the relevant Control Panel page. Try saving it into a .bat file and opening it.

%windir%\system32\control.exe desk.cpl,Themes,@Themes

bdr9

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 2 508

Thanks for the advice, I can actually get to that window, but the option to select another theme is greyed out... – DarkAjax – 2013-03-05T22:48:18.250

This menu path worked for me to uncheck the enable areo peek without admin rights by group policy. Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools\Advanced Tools\Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows. On the Visual Effects Tab uncheck "Enable Areo Peek". Apply and OK.

Just stopping by

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 1

While you don't have admin rights, your domain admins have also not blocked this setting. OPs domain admins have. Please do not post answers that are not helpful. – music2myear – 2018-02-12T22:05:16.853

Go to start menu, type run, type "control sysdm.cpl" then go to the 'Advanced' tab click settings under performance. Then at the bottom of that list, make sure that visual styles is selected. If it already is selected, unselect it and then select it again. Press apply and enjoy!

user412949

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 1

-2

Hit Shift+Alt+PrtScn (Print Screen). When a box pops up asking to continue hit “Yes.” This will allow you to change the theme.

dan b

Posted 2013-03-05T21:53:46.337

Reputation: 1

"Left Alt+left Shift+Print Screen: Turn High Contrast on or off" – zagrimsan – 2015-09-19T03:42:01.270

@zagrimsan: The question asks about disabling something and this disables something, so they're sort of similar, if you squint a little. :-) – fixer1234 – 2015-09-19T04:42:18.967

@fixer1234 Well, as I don't have Windows here now available, I can only assume that the intended effect is to disable Aero by enabling high contrast mode, and that way it would do what OP asked but it will do also something extra (which the OP probably didn't ask for), and I'd guess that is what the down-votes point at. I've once managed to disable Aero by getting Windows to think I had performance issues with it, but I won't post that as an answer, though :) – zagrimsan – 2015-09-19T05:25:20.757