Mele20 Premium Member join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI |
Mele20
Premium Member
2012-Aug-15 7:13 am
[IE] What happened to the Menu bar?I installed the latest Flash Player for IE 8 just now and then started IE to check the installation. What happened to my Menu bar? Where is File, Edit, etc? Why is the bar blank and all black?? Why is the tab bar suddenly all black also? The items are still there on the Menu bar but invisible. If I find the spot on the blank bar where Internet Options should be and click on that blank area then I get the normal dropdown menu and if I then click on Internet Options then File, Edit, View, etc. appear in the blank black bar. Once I close Internet Options box then File, Edit, etc. disappears from the Menu bar. How do I fix this? Did installing the latest Flash Player for IE cause this? It wasn't like this the last time I used IE 8 and the only change since I last used IE 8 was my installing Flash Player latest version a few minutes ago. |
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deke40deke40 Premium Member join:2003-01-23 Texas |
deke40
Premium Member
2012-Aug-15 7:54 am
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Mele20 Premium Member join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI |
Mele20
Premium Member
2012-Aug-15 9:18 am
Thank you. I know you meant well but that was a DISASTER (but that wasn't your fault). I was able to change it to that hideous black theme that Microsoft claims is easier to read. Microsoft is completely crazy because that theme is the MOST difficult to read. I had really bad cataracts a couple of years ago and that theme was totally unreadable as were ALL of Microsoft's so called "Accessibility" themes. They make eye problems MUCH WORSE! Anyhow, I thought I would be ONLY changing IE. That was stupid of me (but it is late and I am sleepy). That changed my WINDOWS THEME (this is XP Pro using Classic Windows Display Settings) and that meant that Fx 10 ESR theme was ALSO CHANGED TO THAT HIDEOUS BLACK THING. So, I tried to change it back like the article said. I got a screeching sound from inside my computer...sounded like the CPU grating on something. I didn't get the popup to change it back as the article instructed. So, I tried again and same thing...a terrible screeching sound from inside the computer. I tried two more times and those times Gadwin Print Screen started...I guess I didn't get the timing exactly correct on pressing the keys as one key is the Printscreen key which starts Gadwin Print Screen. That article should have said how to do it without keyboard shortcuts which I DETEST because they never work for me. So, I could not change it back. I went into Display Properties to try and get my theme back, with all the custom settings I had laboriously set, but couldn't. So, finally, I resorted to System Restore and that worked. I have my theme back and IE 8 looks normal again. Of course, I have to reinstall Flash Player now on Fx. I will leave the older version of Flash Player on IE because I think installing the latest version is what caused this problem. I should know better than to try and fix some crazy IE problem. This sort of crap is why I seldom use IE. That article said Microsoft never fixed this bug!!! GEEZ. Thanks a lot Microsoft. And Microsoft wonders why IE continues to lose market share. I actually like IE 8 but I have no patience for nonsense like this. (What if I didn't have System Restore running? On my Host machine my hard disk is so full that System Restore can't run at all...so at least this happened on a virtual machine. Oh, and VMWare Workstation 7 got all upset about this also and was acting crazy). |
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dave Premium Member join:2000-05-04 not in ohio |
dave
Premium Member
2012-Aug-15 9:26 am
Since this doesn't seem to happen to you without this Flash player update, I'd be pointing the finger of blame at Adobe, not Microsoft. |
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deke40deke40 Premium Member join:2003-01-23 Texas |
deke40
Premium Member
2012-Aug-15 9:51 am
I don't have the blackbar problem and when I tried the fix I really didn't see much of a contrast change.
Sorry about that. |
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Mele20 Premium Member join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI |
to dave
said by dave:Since this doesn't seem to happen to you without this Flash player update, I'd be pointing the finger of blame at Adobe, not Microsoft. Yes, but the article that deke40 pointed me to said that this was a known bug in IE and that Microsoft never fixed the bug hence the workaround described in the article. Sure, Adobe's latest Flash Player update for IE triggered this so, yeah, I blame them for the immediate problem but evidently many things trigger this and Microsoft should have fixed it. The black is really ugly plus you can't see File, edit, etc buttons and you have to blindly move your mouse around to stumble on a button. Then if you have the problem I did with the workaround...well....in retrospect, I should have looked to see how to go into Accessibility and change to that "high contrast" theme and then back without having to use keyboard shortcuts. I know how to do that on IE6 but I don't use IE8 that much and wasn't sure. I remember with IE6 on XP many years ago, when I tried various Accessibility options, that it was quite difficult to go back to normal options and I guess it must be that way on IE 8 too since the keyboard shortcuts worked to change to accessibility theme but wouldn't work to get out of it. When I had Windows 7 public beta on a virtual machine, it kept trying to force me to use an accessibility theme and every time I would start Windows 7 it would not start with the theme I created and saved. It would start with an accessibility (basic) theme and I'd have to create my theme and settings again each time. I don't think much of Microsoft's accessibility efforts as they still appear messed up in Windows 7 (at least in the public beta, hopefully, that was fixed for the final Windows 7 which I have not used). |
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NormanSI gave her time to steal my mind away MVM join:2001-02-14 San Jose, CA TP-Link TD-8616 Asus RT-AC66U B1 Netgear FR114P
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to Mele20
said by Mele20:I installed the latest Flash Player for IE 8 just now and then started IE to check the installation.
What happened to my Menu bar? Where is File, Edit, etc? Why is the bar blank and all black?? Why is the tab bar suddenly all black also? Not a clue. I installed the latest Flash player, but not with IE 8: Menu bars.
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TreatZ
Anon
2012-Aug-19 11:27 am
just press ALT and the hidden menu bar comes back |
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NormanSI gave her time to steal my mind away MVM join:2001-02-14 San Jose, CA TP-Link TD-8616 Asus RT-AC66U B1 Netgear FR114P
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said by TreatZ :just press ALT and the hidden menu bar comes back Look closely at the OP's screen shot: There is a black bar where the menu bar would be. OP definitely has invoked the menu bar. It is as if the background color for the bar is exactly the same as for the text labels. |
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Mele20 Premium Member join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI |
Mele20
Premium Member
2012-Aug-19 8:01 pm
That's correct. It was a black bar and I could not see any text labels for the buttons ...just a solid black bar. I had menu bar checked but I unchecked it and rechecked it...and still had a solid black bar. If I blindly hovered my mouse over a section of the bar where a button should be with a drop down menu (such as Internet Options) the drop down menu for that button would appear but I still would not see the button on the menu bar. If I hovered over the black menu bar area where the Internet Options button should be and I clicked there and Internet Options opeed I would then be able to see File, Edit, View, etc in the bar (which was no longer black) behind the open Internet Options window, but once I closed Internet Options then the menu bar went back to being solid black.
My System Restore worked ....mostly. But I still have a black background on many items where the background should be one of the colors of my theme. If I try to change the black background to the correct theme color in Advanced Display/Items list it won't change. So, I'm thinking that somehow my Theme was damaged when I did the Flash Player installation and that System Restore didn't fully restore the theme. It's an old XP theme so it is possible that the latest Flash Player doesn't play nice with such old themes.
Being a virtual machine, I never installed other themes on it...I probably should install another theme and see if it looks normal or reinstall the one I use and see if that fixes the problem. It takes some time though to go through Items list and configure each one as I want it (I always overrode theme authors settings in Items list so I would have the font, etc that I like). |
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OZO Premium Member join:2003-01-17 |
OZO
Premium Member
2012-Aug-19 10:45 pm
What about other programs? For example, what do you see if you run Notepad? Is menu bar black there too? |
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Name Game Premium Member join:2002-07-07 Grand Rapids, MI |
to Mele20
Permanent fix for the problem can be found in this thread..happened to me also on a dell inspiron 9200 a few times. » [IE] Permanent fix for IE8 'black bar' in XP |
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Name Game |
Now..if you really don't want to follow that suggestion because you like your themes..they just temporally change from your existing theme to another...then reboot and change it back..you might have to redo a few other things if you have gone into the Advance in Appearances..but I do know it works for a while. |
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Mele20 Premium Member join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI |
Mele20
Premium Member
2012-Aug-21 7:20 am
Yes, my theme evidently got screwed up by that Flash Player installation. Resorting, finally, to System Restore fixed the IE 8 black bar but left my theme slightly messed up.
I don't want to not have a theme. I have noticed that since I did the System restore, I can't save my theme. I override most of any theme's properties in Advanced Appearances/Items list. But I can't save a theme anymore after changing it. It is important to be able to save it as I don't want to have to make all the changes in Items list every time I boot that machine.
I only installed one theme on that virtual machine. Maybe I will grab another from my host XP machine and install it and see how it works. It's been so long since I've installed themes on XP though that I have half forgotten any tricks, or squirrelly things, and there were some oddities with themes installing on XP.
I've had problems from the time I first created that virtual machine years ago with themes. It may have to do with VMWare Workstation. Sometimes when I boot that machine the theme appears in a hybrid way where it is partly XP classic windows and buttons style with the theme's colors and other times the windows and buttons revert to XP style red/blue and rounded corners I hate and I have to fiddle around getting Classic style back. I never have had that happen on the host machine where all my themes are set to use classic style windows and buttons and they always do this. Both machines run XP Pro SP2 so the only difference is that one is on VMWare Workstation 7 and the other is the Host machine. So, I think Workstation doesn't like classic style windows and buttons or something and tries to change it.
I have also had a problem with that theme's music getting somehow stuck and I hear it playing over and over even when using my Host machine if the virtual machine is running minimized in the taskbar. Shutting down the virtual machine doesn't clear the stuck music either. I have to cold boot the host usually to clear out the stuck music. It's weird. But it doesn't happen frequently thank goodness. I don't know what triggers the theme music from the virtual machine getting stuck like that. |
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Name Game Premium Member join:2002-07-07 Grand Rapids, MI |
to Mele20
Yes..well ran into that also..if you use system restore for a problem like that it will mess up the current theme you had chosen..and of course theme problems will come back again...flash player update is not the only thing that will cause this in IE8..other updates will also..even some MS has offered to update/security fixes for IE8..and again has to do with XP..how it handles themes you have set..and at other times when add-in are given to the bar. |
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