Massive graphic bug?

[Descartes]

Minutes ago, my Aero just randomly (or so I thought) turned off, leaving me with Vista Basic.

Not a big deal, except that right after this happened, my friend who also uses Windows 7, IM-ed me that it has just also happened to him! Then i just blue screened... after I rebooted, he messaged me that his just went back to normal.

WTF? :|

[lt8480]

Sounds like a graphics problem - not a bug, maybe you should check your graphics card is shown in device manager.

Also your friend is just coincidence.

[Descartes]

We've both got totally different graphic cards - he's got a GeForce, and I've got an ATI Radeon. I don't think it's a coincidence, there must be something common that triggered it. Except that his PC didn't end up rebooting (now THAT could be a driver issue)

[joey_oggie]

Maybe it really is a coincidence but it happened to me too not so long ago (an hour or two maximum) When I checked task manager to see what's going on, I found WinSAT.exe. As soon as I terminated it, everything was back to normal.

[lt8480]

With the information given the only thing that doesn't fall into coincidence is the possibility you both have malware that one of you picked up from the other.

Unless you both had the same PC, or you have both installed something at the same time, or both just updates something, or both got a virus I can almost guarantee they are not related. The fact you are using different hardware suggests its even more likely to be a coincidence presuming the above is not at fault here.

Bugs in software generally speaking do not have "timers" that trigger things at the same time (bar millineum bug style problems).

[JustGeorge]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. This happened to me and I believe Windows 7 runs the Aero assessment tool sometime after install by itself. It only happened to me once and has been fine ever since. Mine was an Intel G31/33 gfx chipset. Can't explain the BSOD though as that didn't happen here.

[Guest xiphi]

7 runs the Assessment during idle times. As for the "bug", I doubt it was coincidental.

[redvamp128]

I have had recently -- while using Yahoo 10 Video chat and minimizing the chat window - and then resizing it Aero kicked off (Win7 Home Premium X64) - though it gave me a yahoo is not compatible error- When I closed yahoo it returned to normal.

[soldier1st]

if you run an app that does not support aero then vista basic will display, also try removing the disaplay drivers and download the newest ones then reboot after you removed the old ones and install newest ones, if that don't help remove drivers then get them from windows update.

[_neutrino Veteran]

Not that this is your issue however when a computer begins remote connection it will go to basic

[Tanoru]

Occasionally I get somehting similar to this. My OS goes to Windows Basic and says that my Graphics driver has failed and has had to reboot, then it switched back to Aero. Rather annoying when I'm playing a game. Although it never blue screens me.

[garlandchaos]

Windows 7 dropped to Aero Basic this morning about 1AM.

Checked the event viewer: A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (Windows System Assessment Tool).

So I checked the Task Scheduler, Maintenance folder, WinSAT scheduled to run at 1AM. So I disabled it.

It was supposed to run when idle. I guess a browser open watching Hulu counts as idle.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

This just happened to me, and I worked out why. I updated my drivers today.

When you update the drivers, it marks it as needing to be retested, 1am turned around and it disabled aero and retested the system (and since I was using my computer at the time, it gave me a rating of 1.0).

[PurePhoenix]

I guess a browser open watching Hulu counts as idle.

Any period of low CPU usage (EDIT: And low amount of input) counts as idle. Regardless of RAM usage.