No Aero for domain users

[u8dmtm]

Just added our first Windows 7 station to our domain and everything was fine except that domain users get a horrible basic grey taskbar and windows instead of Aero. This issue did not affect our Vista stations when we added them.

 

Can anyone sugest why aero is disabled / not working, it works for local users and domain admin users.

[Gatt]

Just added our first Windows 7 station to our domain and everything was fine except that domain users get a horrible basic grey taskbar and windows instead of Aero. This issue did not affect our Vista stations when we added them.

 

Can anyone sugest why aero is disabled / not working, it works for local users and domain admin users.

 

 

OOh I came across this the first time i joined Win7 to the domain - I'm sure it was a policy settings somewhere, or related to the Performance Index, or both...

 

This was way back in August tho so cant think waht I did to resolve it...

[mrbios]

Two things, first being i assume your GPO has "Force a specific visual style or force windows classic" set to the aero theme?

 

Secondly have you run the Performance assessment jobby and got a score >1 on graphics?

 

Assuming both of those are done...ive no idea

[stevenwba]

if its disabled related to performance index you can force it with a registry hack

 

Hack to Force Enable Aero in Windows 7 My Digital Life

[Gatt]

Two things, first being i assume your GPO has "Force a specific visual style or force windows classic" set to the aero theme?

 

Secondly have you run the Performance assessment jobby and got a score >1 on graphics?

 

Assuming both of those are done...ive no idea

 

This sounds familiar - I think I removed that GPO for it to work!

[u8dmtm]

Did the performance rating and it didn't change anything.

 

We're using Server 2003 DCs, could that be the issue as the 'Force specific visual styles..' GPO isn't on it. Set it locally to the Aero theme but that too doesn't work.

 

I'm also getting a blank back background instead of the Group Policy wallpaper, all very frustrating.

[Zenden]

check out http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47835-windows-7-gotchas-tips-fyi.html for the answer to your wallpaper issue.

 

to sort the aero theme, export the admx files from a windows 7 machine and import them to the group policy central store on the server. That should allow you to use the policies for win7 (even on win 2003 domain) and set it to aero

 

hope that helps mate

[nicholab]

Don't you what the Grey style?

[jdthompson]

Hi, this thread is showing up on google so I wanted to give a final answer here as this thread helped me fix the same problem I was having.

 

I had a GPO set to force the Luna style for XP. It is called "Force a specific visual style file or force Windows Classic" and can be located at User > Policies > Administrative Templates > Control panel > Personalization

[tomblind]

Just added our first Windows 7 station to our domain and everything was fine except that domain users get a horrible basic grey taskbar and windows instead of Aero. This issue did not affect our Vista stations when we added them. Can anyone sugest why aero is disabled / not working, it works for local users and domain admin users.

We ran into this when we migrated. Open your GPO that you're using with gpmc.msc - or the local policy editor via gpedit.msc. Navigate to User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization Look for the setting named 'Prevent changing theme' and make sure it is disabled or not configured. This will no longer prevent users from changing the themes, but they WILL be required to manually change to another theme (such as Aero). You might want to make sure that User Group Policy loopback processing mode is turned on so the settings will apply to the machines versus the users - depending upon where the GPO is applied. (Computer Settings>Administrative settings>System>Group Policy) I hope this helps.