In the resulting Notepad window, paste the following: To force Aero to work correctly, go to Start > and type notepad.

This would most commonly be done if your graphics hardware is up to the job but doesn’t specifically support WDDM.

If this fails to work, there is one other useful method that can force Aero to run. The wizard will then run through several steps that should fix the Aero themes. From here, choose Display Aero desktop effects. Go to Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Find and Fix Problems. To resolve issues with the Windows Display Driver Model, Windows 7 features a useful wizard that can help to determine the cause. If after installing the updated driver your themes are still greyed out, a problem with the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) might be the cause. If however you have answered no to all of the above, the first thing you should do is check with your GFX card manufacturer for up to date drivers. Is your motherboard equipped with an Intel 910 or 915 chipset?īy answering yes to any of the above, you can establish that your PC is not equipped to run Aero.Is there less than 1GB RAM installed in your PC or laptop?.Is your graphic card equipped with less than 128 MB RAM?.Is your graphic card DirectX 8 or lower?.To begin troubleshooting Windows 7, consider the following: Reasons Why Windows 7 Aero Themes Greyed Out If you’re experiencing problems with Aero running as intended under Windows 7, you should first of all take a look at your PC or laptop system specs. Windows 7 boasts a new version of the Aero system introduced in Windows Vista which offers the user a slick and graphics intensive user interface which can be switched on or off.Īero is also scalable, which means various elements are enabled or disabled based on the system spec of the PC or laptop.Īmong the cool enhancements Aero offers are Windows 7 themes – greyed out themes usually indicate that the host PC or laptop isn’t up to the task of running Windows 7 with Aero active.

Aero themes greyed out