Issues After Re-installing Windows

[Wh1t3h34d]

So basically, on my old laptop, I decided that I wanted to completely factory reset it - I had a windows restore disk, so I went ahead and used that to essentially do a fresh install (I used the license key from the sticker on the bottom of the laptop). Everything was fine, and after a while I was able to get into windows. When it first logged in, the theme was windows classic (as I expected because no drivers were installed). Next I went ahead and installed the necessary drivers, including: chipset, wifi/bluetooth adapters, webcam, soundcard, card reader, power management and video card (the laptop has both an intel integrated video card, as well as an nvidia geforce 520M, so I installed drivers for both) etc. I also did windows updates and installed some anti-virus software, on the laptop.

 

After rebooting, and logging in sucessfully, I noticed that there were still a few problems. Firstly - the theme was still stuck on windows classic. When I tried to change it to the aero desktop on the personalisation settings, it said "The theme could not be applied to the desktop" - it said this for every theme that I tried to apply. So I go to the control panel and click on 'Find and fix problems' - there is a button called 'Display aero themes' so I click that. It goes through a troubleshooting menu, and finally changes the theme to aero; it says that the problem was that 'Desktop window manager was disabled'. However, every time I reboot my laptop, it reverts back to windows classic.

 

Another problem is that I can't pin items to the taskbar (quick launch bar) or startmenu - I think this is something to do with the registry, but don't know what would have caused it.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Wtalk2]

You can try this "Fix It" from Microsoft that supposedly fixes most problems with Aero.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/aero_effects_not_working

[Wh1t3h34d]

You can try this "Fix It" from Microsoft that supposedly fixes most problems with Aero.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/aero_effects_not_working

doesn't seem to do anything

[Wtalk2]

doesn't seem to do anything

If you don't mind going through the process reinstalling Windows again might fix it, I've ran into problems with new Windows installs that I have fixed that way before.