Hey,
A couple of times now I have cleaned my mouse and accidentally opened up some feature in windows 7 that darkens the screen background and displays all the windows fitted on the screen.
This is not tiling or cascading - it's something different.
I can't see how I did it, but it must have been a mouse action. Anyone know what I am going on about ?
Not a clue, Mate. Given that I can't see what you did, I couldn't even venture a guess. :(
It wasn't the show desktop thing you get when you put the cursor in the bottom left hand side of the screen is it Freddy?
I do that one all the time by accident :D
Nope it's not DD.
I've never seen it before on any version of windows.
You know how on some sites if you click on an image it brings the image up and then darkens the surrounding screen ? It's like that, but instead of the image it's my windows.
I can't see what I could have clicked to recreate it.
If it happens again, hit [PrtScn], open your graphics app, paste and post. :D
If it isn't ALT + TAB or WIN + TAB, the only two I know, but there might be others :scratch-head: then I guess it could be some kind of mouse feature maybe that got installed with the mouse software.
Not those. Nothing on the mouse is doing it. Weird. Oh well thanks all for trying.
There are TONS of [winKey]+[something else] combinations, so if it involved the keyboard it could be almost anything, but I got the impression that it was a combination of only mouse buttons hit. Again, seeing as I don't know what mouse Freddy uses, I again have no clue. :-\
These windows features work in different ways depending on having Aero on or off. :idea:
I got it to do it again, bizarrely by cleaning the mouse again. I can't figure out the mouse combination.
Got an image :
(http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy275/Rogad/windows-thing_zps778ca4eb.jpg)
I thought the screen darkened, but maybe it doesn't.
That looks like a video glitch, similar to one that I get when the screensaver stops. Normally, I only get that "blackness" on either Firefox or Chrome browsers, and from the looks of it, your Chrome is the thing affected. AMD vid card, right?
AMD yes.
I think you may be right - I could recreate it with buttons briefly. But then it stopped doing it - so I don't think it is an intended feature.
Oddly the transition to that screenshot was animated - it sort of zoomed them. Very odd :scratch-head:
It's some kind of mouse feature, Microsoft mice do something like that
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ReviewMicrosoftTouchMouseForWindows7.aspx (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ReviewMicrosoftTouchMouseForWindows7.aspx)
Try turning Aero on, it might fix Chrome not working, by turning it off you are in affect disabling acceleration on the desktop, but I understand your card does struggle with 2D acceleration :LOL:
Chrome is working fine mate, not sure what you meant :scratch-head:
Nah I don't like Aero, it messes with LOTRO and other games.
I'll take a look at the link in the morning. Good night all :)
Chrome was all black in the screenshot, could be the lack of hardware acceleration.
When I turn Areo off my desktop feels slower and more jerky, I don't know how you put up with it. :LOL:
Never had any problem with Aero and games, have played a few now. :)
Oh right - yeah I see what you meant now - I'm not worried by that - it's only when this 'feature' kicks in that it does that.
No my desktop is fine, fast and quick - nothing wrong with it at all.
Fire enough mate,
Just so you all know, when Aero is disabled in Win 7 then full hardware acceleration is also disabled. (It was made "turn off able" for slow computers like laptops that don't have much of a graphics card) If you have a good card like we all do then the desktop is faster less jerky and more efficient with Aero on.
I did a test, two images one with Aero off and one with it on, in both I am moving the open window around fast with the mouse, with the Aero on the CPU runs at 1.8 GHz and is using 4% with Aero off the CPU is at 3.7 GHz and is being used @ 33%
Basically the CPU is used to render much of the desktop when Aero is off, not very efficient when you have a £200 graphics card sitting in your PC. :confused:
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I don't tend to move my windows around like a mad man... :P
Also I don't see anything being jerky, so not really bothered to be honest all in all.