I was personalizing my desktop background and clicked on the black solid color just to see what it looked like. Now I cannot change my background to anything but a solid color. I cannot display any pictures, but can change the taskbar based on which theme I select. Is there any way to geta picture back on the desktop?

Fradavh - Which black solid color? The screen background color or the High Contrast Black theme?If it was a case of selecting the High Contrast Black (or #1 or #2) themes, then you should still be able to go back into the Personalization screen and pick one of the themes above it - Windows 7, Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, etc...

Wolfie2k6 -I'm not sure WHICH Black it is. All my system does when I right click on the background and select Personalize, I can click on any of the Aero Themes and the taskbar changes color. If I click on the Desktop Background at the bottom of the window, the Solid Colors are displayed in the next window. I can click on any of these colors and the background changes, but if I use the Picture Selection pull-down menu to select Windows Desktop Backgrounds, the window changes to show all the Aero backgrounds and all of them are checked. No matter which background I select, my background remains a solid color.

Fradavh-Ok.. So let me see if I have this right:1.) You clicked open the Personalize screen.2.) You clicked in the Desktop Background. 3.)Under Picture Location at the top, you selected Solid Colors4.) You selected the first color - Black and clicked Save changes.And now you tried the following to undo that:5.) You opened the Personalize screen again.6.) You clicked on Desktop Background7.) You changed the Picture Location at the top to Windows Desktop Backgrounds8.) You picked another wallpaper from the available list and the desktop never changed.Did you click on the Save Changes button at the bottom after clicking on the new background?So what exactly happens if you select, say, the Windows 7 theme on the first screen of the Personalize window? Or any of the other 6 Aero themes listed?

From the Aero Themes, I selected Landscapes, clicked on Desktop Background, used the pull-down menu to select Windows Desktop Backgrounds, which brought up all the .jpg pictures, selected img10 (the waterfall), clicked Save Changes, closed the window and I am still left with a solid color background.

Fradavh - Ok.. Let's take this back a step. What kind of video card do you have and how much memory does it have access to? It is, I presume capable of doing Aero. Right?

I should have since I ran the beta version of W7. I have a Nvidia GEForce 8800 GTS w/1meg ram, not to mention everything was ok on my system until I used the "shuffle" feature on the backgrounds (which never worked) and then looked at tthe black selection.

Fradavh - Just checking... You never know and can't always assume that everyone has the right hardware. 1 MB of video RAM? Somehow that doesn't sound right. the 8800 GTS family is new enough to come with at least 128 MB, if not more memory. Going to assume that's a typo. Ok.. That settled, I can't seem to duplicate the problem. But... I did take notice of something. When you modify the theme by either selecting a color or selecting a background image, do you get a new theme being created at the very top of the personalization screen under the catagory of "My Themes"? I'm thinking there should be at least one "Unsaved theme" up there. So.. Let's try this - Right-click on the theme and save it. Next, select the standard Windows 7 theme. the window color should change, the background should also change to the fish. Now, once you've selected another theme, the theme you created and saved can be deleted. Right-click and delete it.

There are no unsaved themes shown so I'm still coming up with the same results.

I even downloaded the Fuji theme from Microsoft and saved it. Then when I clicked on the Windows 7 theme, nothing changed on my desktop except the taskbar.

Themes were totaly screwed up since the RC usesa new "thempack" system that is supposed to save all the files that comprise a theme butnever seams to work very well.Proud to be an American.

The lack of any response is a bit unnerving. Is my only solution a reinstall Windows 7 RC and all my programs?

Troubleshooting can sometimes be solved with a forum but it's something you just learn to do from experiance. I used to reinstall my system often and it is frustrating but a thing I did was automate my system so it installs along with all of my programs and the more I learned about the system the more often I could repair it and the less often I had to reinstall.

The lack of any response is a bit unnerving. Is my only solution a reinstall Windows 7 RC and all my programs? Fradavh - Sorry... I kinda got sidetracked. Before you blow everything out - you can try an in-place upgrade. You insert the DVD, run the installer from within Windows and you wind up installing on top of the existing copy of Windows 7. This has the effect of resetting the existing files to their default state. Your data and programs shouldn't be affected. Note - as always it's a good idea to back everything up - just in case. You may have to reactivate and visit Windows Update again, but it should also reset whatever got stuck with the themes...

The lack of any response is a bit unnerving. Is my only solution a reinstall Windows 7 RC and all my programs? Fradavh - Sorry... I kinda got sidetracked. Before you blow everything out - you can try an in-place upgrade. You insert the DVD, run the installer from within Windows and you wind up installing on top of the existing copy of Windows 7. This has the effect of resetting the existing files to their default state. Your data and programs shouldn't be affected. Note - as always it's a good idea to back everything up - just in case. You may have to reactivate and visit Windows Update again, but it should also reset whatever got stuck with the themes... Hey, has any one knows why my audio in not working and I'm having issue with my Mass storage? any help or suggestion?

The lack of any response is a bit unnerving. Is my only solution a reinstall Windows 7 RC and all my programs? Fradavh - Sorry... I kinda got sidetracked. Before you blow everything out - you can try an in-place upgrade. You insert the DVD, run the installer from within Windows and you wind up installing on top of the existing copy of Windows 7. This has the effect of resetting the existing files to their default state. Your data and programs shouldn't be affected. Note - as always it's a good idea to back everything up - just in case. You may have to reactivate and visit Windows Update again, but it should also reset whatever got stuck with the themes... Wolfie2k6-Your suggestion worked, and I did have to use a registration code to activate it, but it was the same one I used before. Everything else seems ok for now.I do have one question:If you "Save Changes" on the personalization of the desktop, does that change the screen background for that entire group from then on? If that's the case, Microsoft may want to rethink their wording or put a warning concerning a permanent change.

Fradavh - Very cool that it worked..!If you take a theme of any sort, and you change the background, or you set a screensaver or window color, and click Save - it should create a brand new theme which should be listed at the top as an "Unsaved Theme" - which you can then right-click on and Save it with some file name that makes sense to you. I started off with the default Windows 7 theme, changed pretty much everything (background image, window color and screensaver - and saved it as my own custom theme. Now I can experiment to my heart's content and when I go back to the usual settings, I just click my theme and everything goes back to the way it was. NO idea what happened with your setup or how it got stuck. Idid pretty much everything youmentioned in your posts - and it never got stuck on a black background.

Same thing is happening to me. I guess I will reinstall windows 7 RC.

Jnunley - You do NOT need to reinstall Windows 7 RC. Read the "solution" at the second message from the top. That is the solution to your problems

Oh man. Same issue with my EVGA 8800 card. Very frustrating. I got this problem in the final release too. Doing the in-line upgrade now to see if it fixes it. Spent hours trying to find a fix. Doesn't seem many people have this issue. Has to be something with the video card. Odd. Just odd.

The lack of any response is a bit unnerving. Is my only solution a reinstall Windows 7 RC and all my programs? Fradavh - Sorry... I kinda got sidetracked. Before you blow everything out - you can try an in-place upgrade. You insert the DVD, run the installer from within Windows and you wind up installing on top of the existing copy of Windows 7. This has the effect of resetting the existing files to their default state. Your data and programs shouldn't be affected. Note - as always it's a good idea to back everything up - just in case. You may have to reactivate and visit Windows Update again, but it should also reset whatever got stuck with the themes... Well, another option you can try on that problem is, New user account, we have checked on standalone machines and that's working fine and checked on may computer which were facing the same problem. This has something related to user account corruption, on some stand alone machine i have checked that wallpaper key is there but still we had the problem, only workaround on those machines we have found is new user account.Jatin

you do not have to re install windows 7, you can use a wallpaper switcher ( http://download.cnet.com/Wallpaper-Switcher-NET/3000-2336_4-10558039.html ) i had the same problem and this fixed it. good luck :)

I know you've already got this fixed, but i was just about to repair my Win 7 installation when i managed to find the offending file. I deleted this file: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\TranscodedWallpaper.jpg (just rename it if you're uneasy) Went back to personalization and picked a wallpaper, and BANG! it worked. I think the permissions on that file were messed up, stopping Windows from reading/updating it.

I know you've already got this fixed, but i was just about to repair my Win 7 installation when i managed to find the offending file. I deleted this file: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\TranscodedWallpaper.jpg (just rename it if you're uneasy) Went back to personalization and picked a wallpaper, and BANG! it worked. I think the permissions on that file were messed up, stopping Windows from reading/updating it.