Strange Problem with Windows XP

I've had this problem happen with several of my OS installs. It usually happens after a try out some "reg cleaner" utility, but sometimes it just happens for unknown reasons, and once it happens, it stays that way, and I don't know if there's a way to fix it.

The problem is that my Start menu selections get randomly embossed, and even change to a different shade of gray from the standard gray color. I've even had the background color change to all dark blue, or all black, instead of the normal gray. BTW, this with the old Windows Classic theme. But it does the same weird things with the eye-candy theme too.

What's going on?

Has this ever happened to you, or have you ever heard of this?

 

Hmmm, I wonder if your Windows CD is ok?
Something might have happened to it.......
jtmat, will you please be nicer? Windows does break on it's own sometimes. So Does Linux, unix & Mac OS X. Every OS can just break with out operator error.

 

No. I've got two different OS disks, and installs from both of them have done this. It doesn't happen right after the install, it takes awhile.

 

Like how long? What software is installed in that period?

 

The only thing I've installed recently is Threatfire. I seriously doubt it caused this problem, but who knows? It's just this weird random thing that I've had happen to my systems. I didn't post this thread as much for solutions as I did just to see if anyone else has ever had this problem before.

 

Try not installing that?
Worth a shot.

 

Well, I imaged my install prior to installation, so going back will take just a matter of minutes.

 

I'm thinking its more of a video issue rather then a software issue. You sure its the reg cleaner that sets it off? I have you used CCleaner?

Are you using a CRT monitor? Do you have any extra video cards you can swap in? Maybe try a different set of video drivers? Older ones would do

 

Sounds like a visual glitch. Im suspecting the GPU drivers or OS itself

 

I'm sure it's not the video card, and like I said, it's not just from reg cleaners, I've had this problem without ever having used one on a system. Of course I'd like to find a fix, but I'm more curious to know who else has experienced this problem, it can't just be me.

 

yea something like this happened to me before in XP, actually alot of visual glitches have. Usually happens after a game crashing or something full screen.

Its possible whatever reg cleaner your using is deleting a incorrect registry entry

 

Never had this happen and I've used several different reg cleaners over the years (ccleaner, winaso, free reg repair, and I think one other). I've stuck with XP since it came out, so I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps some of the display info is being changed The only time I remember having anything remotely similar is when all of a sudden my, um whatever the bar with the typical file, edit, view, etc is called, became black for some programs and I couldn't see any of the text. I don't know what set it off.