"Advanced Display" pixelates tray icons

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Clean install of XP Home, no OEM software (I hate it! Especially HP... ). So the first thing I am doing is looking through all CP options, course this one is common: Display. Under the "advanced" tab where you choose "theme", there is an option to change colors and fonts of certian elements... some of these work when you don't go to ME theme, some don't. So I changed all the colors, and when I was done, there were a few problems:

|X| |min| |max| buttons were smaller (I changed the size of these afterwards to what visually appears to be close to the normal size)
Tray icons are large and pixelated
Message dialog box has huge "Okay" buttons (really huge)
Desktop and window icons were not affected.
Apparently, icons in places like start menu and CTRL ALT DEL were affected, but, it's only apparent from the text spacing.

I did not change any "size" attributes, does anyone know why this happened or how to fix it?

Here's a couple of screens all in one file. http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/331/iconproblemsmj2.png

Oops forgot the message box. http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7105/messageboxmi5.png

Edit: Hmm it looks as though ImageShack resized my collaboration screen, even though I didn't ask it to, and I no longer have the original file, but I think you can see from the task manager how the icons are bigger then they are supposed to be... the "pixels" in the pixelation are rather big as well, though you probably can't tell.

 

....

How would looking at an article that describes exactly what I just did which messed up tray icons, help fix them.....?

Anyway, I have reformatted my computer after writing down all the colors, and I'd really prefer not to do it again, so here's what happens:

If you change the colors in advanced display settings, the MIN|MAX|CLOSE buttons in windows become extremely small after you hit 'Apply'. Nothing happens to the tray or other icons at this time, but if you try to fix the X button by increasing it's size back to what appears to be normal (which happens to be somewhere in BETWEEN 24 and 25, btw), then the tray icons pixelate themselves along with every other icon on the computer that isn't actually an icon (i.e. windows explorer and desktop, which are not affected). Also, this appeaers to be normal, as in every user will experience it. But, I don't know how to fix it.

 

Sparky assumed that your desktop icons needed defaulting which the article covers.

IIRC you can boot into Safe Mode (hit 'f8' before the windows splash screen after you switch on your computer and choose 'safe mode' option). The theme service doesn't run here and so you go into the settings and apply a 'windows classic' style, reboot it into Windows and then choose 'Windows XP Style'. This should default the theme.

Advanced display settings are a bit of a pain, but at least now you know not to mess with settings that you don't fully comprehend.

Glad you have it sorted.

Qs

 

I know that changing back to Windows default "theme" will set it back to default, but that will erase all my colors settings! I suppose I can save this as a scheme and then set back to regular and see if that fixes the tray/other icons (would be easier then another reformat!), but, upon thinking about reformatting it again without realizing the obvious option you just mentioned (meaning, that it is at least in part so obvious that I should have thought to try it though I wouldn't have put in the safe mode if I had thought), I realized that the MIN|MAX|CLOSE button resize is too small to be easily functional and the pixelated, though it messes up my computer, is probably actually better then the small icons. So, I need to know how to get rid of pixelated tray and other icons, not to erase the few hours I spent setting colors!

The small icons is something Windows always does, I think, because I know that this happened on two other computers only without the pixelated icons part. But, the pixelated icons, as I said, did not appear until increasing the button size back to close-to-normal. I think I will save a scheme, try your suggestion, and then see if I can edit the caption button size in registry without getting pixelation... by the way setting which have to do solely with what colors and fonts to display on screen are not something I "don't fully comprehend"... even my son's father would fully comprehend these settings, and he after 2 years of using the internet still asks me whether or not he should click "ok" on a dialog box that has, for example, terms of use on it when installing a software I sent him to download... or getting extremely frustrated and angry because he could not understand what to do when telling him how to upload pics to MySpace...

 

When I tried this without using safe mode, it set my tray icons to the proper size, but did not un-pixelate them. That means it is hard to see them because the "pixel size" of the pixelation is rather huge, and currently they are bigger due to my keeping the caption buttons set to the default size (which is between 24 and 25). I will try it using safe mode when it is next possible for me to restart my PC. But please let me know if [someone] have/has any other ideas in the meantime, because since the color settings resize the buttons anyway that may not be a solution I can use!

Edit: I read the article word-for-word just to make sure, and it doesn't say anything about defaulting it just tells you how to manually reset icons to the default... a sentence saying "The default icon size is 32" would have the same effect on a user who knows how to get to the "advanced" (:O!) colors area. But, as I said, my actual icons themselves were not affected, only the tray/etc. icons. The 32 size and the select box listed there is for the regular icons, in windows and desktop. I suppose these affected icons are more graphical-related then the regular icons, though that explanation wouldn't make sense in regards to the task manager which is affected. The file chooser dialog box is also not affected.

 

Have you tried this?

Right click desktop, Choose Properties / Appearance / Advanced and go to the Active Title Bar option. Set the size of the font to 8 point or 10 point. Mine is Trebuchet MS font with a size of 10.

HTH

NB

 

I actually have the font on the title bars set to 12 (Georgia), which is bigger then the default. Doesn't change the caption button size.

So, went to safe mode, selecting Windows Classic (default) did not actually change any colors at all when you hit 'apply', but you can't do anything in safe moed because the themes service is not allowed to run. So, I downloaded some themes to see if that resets it, as well I just rest to the original XP theme... while not in safe mode. This fixed the pixealted icons, and I thought I could possibly avoid having the caption buttons resized by not ever selecting "caption buttons" on my way down the modded colors list... that didn't work so at the moment I have regular tray icons and small caption buttons. I think the tray icons might actually be slightly smaller then normal now though; I can't tell for sure. But, I don't think it simply resizes both and that's it, because when they were pixelated and I made them smaller, they never went back to not being pixelated at any size.

The types of themes I downloaded are the kind you put in %windir%...themes, and none of them showed up in safe mode so I reset... they still didn't show up in regular mode or so it seems, so I ran mxpatcher, then saw that three of them were listed in a different tab, not in the first tab. Yesterday after my reformat + wireless driver (nothing else), there was something called "Internet Connection" in my connections manager. Once I set this connection to put an icon in the system tray, it popped up saying I was conncted at 100mbps. Now, I do not by any means believe this was accurate, but, after I got that icon up, my net *did* all of a sudden go a lot faster! At the moment that connection is no longer listed in entwork connections... so I was wondering if anyone knows what changed mxpatcher makes in the *.dll file and how to undo them (I doubt this removed the "connection" but you never know).

 

*eurg* My eyes hurt. My A Level in English Language defeats horrible non-use of paragraphs! Pah!


*ahem*

As far as I'm aware these mxpatcher, uxpatcher (yadda yadda) alteration files purely make windows recognize 3rd party themes (as opposed to the usual three you get with XP). The change shouldn't have messed up any of your 'advanced' settings.

You could always just go through your list of advanced settings and reset the values to what they should be (google this).

Else, have you checked accessibility options to make sure that's not the cause? (you can find this through control panel)

 

Actually, I haven't changed much of any settings yet (http://www.geocities.com/slimshadybsb/changelog.txt)... The "Internet Connection" connection just sort of magically appeared yesterday while I was on an unidentified connection (Linksys, business most likely). Right now I am on a different connection then the one last not, but I have been on that connection many times before and never gotten weird icons that speed up my internet! I didn't think the patcher was likely to have anything to do with it, but it's the only thing that's been changed... if you were referring to "advanced colors settings" then no, the problem I was referring to uxptacher (simply because there doesn't seem to be another option!) is not related to colors.

I had not set accesibility options for strange colors, only numlock/capslock beeps.

-------------------

You were right Notes, the title bar font was resizing things. But I didn't originally understand why you were saying it. Problem is, when I set font setting back to the original it didn't fix this. So I had to reset first, then set each option individually and saved after each one, and had no problems as I set the title bar font last. If you set the font, and then edit the registry to display appropiate caption button sizes, it doesn't do anything!! (yes I did restart afterwards) So, what you have to do for any font is set the font and font size you want, and then change the title bar size to 25 WITHOUT clicking okay on the advanced window first. If you click okay, open it up again, and then set it to 25... you will get pixelated tray icons. Weird.

I also though it rather odd that setting a font size bigger then the original makes the title bar go smaller...