Windows 10: Dialogue box text throughout the system is blacked out.

Every 24 hours or so I am having to do a System Restore to a point last month because of this. Suddenly, all system text boxes are blacked out like this. I've tried everything I can think of (not easy to check for driver updates when you can't read the boxes!). Can ANYONE please help me to sort this out for good as it is making my laptop unusable.

:)

 

Windows 10 Edge Print Dialog Box Too Big

Yes, dialogue box is too long for widescreen laptops in MS Edge. The print button is always offscreen and it's impossible to move the box up high enough to access it! It is possible to re-size it but the system doesn't remember the re-size when I next print.

While we're at it, is there any way of making the dialogue box show white background with black type rather than the black background with white type? It's not very easy on the eye, making it hard to read.

Or even better, just give me my own printer's dialogue box, which after all is designed to work seamlessly with my printer!

 

E72 Display question

Text boxes appear and disappear - but no text inside the boxes throughout the presentation







anyone know the answer to this or how to fix it??

 

Hi, when that happens, does e.g. the background colour of wordpad or notepad change too?

 

Hi, could you give us a bit more info on your system? And make sure to answer dalchina's question, it is relevant.

Short thing you can do and should do first: Update all your drivers (check your machine's manufacturer's site), including (and in particular) a new graphic card driver (reinstall it completely (clean re-install)), and also run Windows update. If they're hard to get from your pc, use a different one, but this is pretty important. Reboot and hope the problem is fixed forever. Run CCleaner, clear out your pc, and disable any software that is booting itself on startup and that you really don't need all the time (you can do this easily in ccleaner too). It will make your pc faster and it could fix the problem.
If the problem is occuring, don't restore instantly but boot your pc in Safe Mode. Is the problem there as well? \
Make a new Windows account. Use that. is the problem fixed now?

If all of that fails:

Longer answer: Your problem can be a tricky one. I don't think anyone will be able to tell you "do this, problem fixed" (I hope I'm wrong, of course). This is going to take time on your part. Personally, I would do a fresh Windows install, Windows update instantly, and then install all drivers required manually and all software I need, one by one, see if the problem arises at some point. It honestly shouldn't on a fresh install.

If you're not up for that, you'll need to do some testing to narrow down the problem. I'd suspect that something (driver update, any software update.. (firewall/antivirus)..) is installing itself automatically at some point after your restore, which is then causing some conflict of another resulting in this issue. You have to narrow down the possible culprits until we find what the cause is.

From a fresh restore point, you could try to instantly run Windows Update (there should be updates available, since you restored), reboot your pc, and see if the problem suddenly is there. If there is no problem with the Update, run whatever automatic update or install you normally would get after a restore - can be anything, from flash and java to your firewall/antivirus whatever software you have running on your pc and that could be updating itself. Just hurry the process along by trying to think of what is running on your pc and updating it manually yourself one by one (don't forget to reboot your pc every time). Check your taskbar and your ctrl-alt-delete menu for an idea of what processes are running. See if you can recreate the problem by yourself.

Lastly, if you're up for it, you could dig through the windows logfiles to see if there's any unusual report that could be related to this.

 

Hi Dalchina/ Luulune,
thank you for your help with this (sorry for the slow reply, I've been away for the weekend).

The background colour (white) of Notepad etc. doesn't change.

This just happens randomly and instantaneously (like the system has fallen off a cliff). When it does happen, I try using Windows Update in Settings and Control Panel to update any drivers I can find (not easy when you can't read the descriptions) but each time I am told that my system has the best drivers. I am having to do this on a daily basis but the system still packs up eventually and only a System Restore seems to cure it...for a short while.

Background Intelligence Transfer Service does tell me it found that "Service registration is missing or corrupt" but then tells me it is fixed.

I have run sfc /scannow and DISM but both find no problems and I am only using Windows Defender with automatic updates.

I have been told by others NOT to use CCleaner as it can damage your system?

Since buying my laptop just before Christmas last year I have had nothing but trouble with it.

File explorer takes a minute or more to open (working on it!!!) and then constantly hangs or freezes whenever I ask it to search/Copy/Move anything at all. This seems to get much worse just before the blackout problem occurs (but this could just be my imagination).

I have twice had to run a System Reset which works for a week or two but soon everything falls apart again.

I have Windows 10
Version 1607
OS Build 14393.51
Processor Intel (R) Core i5 - 6200OU CPU 230GHz 64 bit

The laptop is incredibly slow on start up but I don't feel confident enough to start deleting or changing programs.

How do I find the graphics card and how do I do a clean reinstall?

Make a new Windows account? I don't know what that means (sorry, I'm a real numpty with computers).

I really would appreciate any help you could give me (in as simple steps as possible).

Thanks and best regards,

 

Hi, I could assume your laptop came with Win 10 and initially behaved well, starting fast. If on the other hand, it came with, say, Win 8 and you then upgraded to Win 10, and have had problems ever since, that's another matter. So if you could tell us the story, that's important.

Did all these problems start after you installed some programs, for example - or just randomly?

That you've run SFC & DISM and they pass is a good sign.

Let's start with absolute basics... check your disk. It's no good attempting repairs if there's a problem there.

chkdsk
From an admin command prompt
[Windows key + X, click command prompt (admin)]
chkdsk C: /F
Your PC will need to restart.
Make sure the result is clear or fixed.
Post back the result, which you can get after a restart as follows:
How do I see the results of a CHKDSK that ran on boot? - Ask Leo!

Next question: do you have a full backup of all your data? If not, now's the time.

Next question: would you be willing to do a clean install of Win 10, wiping everything from your disk- that means reinstalling everything, and redoing all settings you want to keep? (Some people with more complicated setups worry how long that will take)

We don't at this point know if problems have been caused by malware or something you've installed.

Could you try booting to Safe Mode, and saying how that affects
- start up time
- your dialogue box problems
- File explorer time to open
- any other comments.

(Ccleaner is one of the (few) safe cleaners- I use it regularly. But I don't clean my registry. That can be problematic).

 

Hi Dalchina,
something weird just happened!!! For the third time in 5 hours the black bars just appeared, and I had to go through the rigmarole of System Restore. This last time however, I opened Control Panel, found the Intel Graphics Driver (520) and chose to uninstall it. Immediately, the bars disappeared (I got a message box telling me that the uninstall won't complete until I restart the computer but so far I haven't done that and all seems well).

My laptop is a HP Pavillion and I bought from Currys/PC World (won't go there again). I thought it had only ever had Win 10 installed but I have just discovered that this is not the case ((System Recovery tells me I will not be able to revert to the original OS if I progress) so clearly my "new" laptop is an upgrade!!!

I will try to do the chkdsk and let you know what happens.

Thanks for your time with this.

Tom

 

Sounds like it may be a question of the graphic driver version and compatibility.

You should know if you upgraded to Win 10 after you bought it as that's a lengthy procedure, and the appearance changes notably from Win 8.1.

Please complete your system specs, and check what drivers are supported- it is possible to use an older version of the driver and keep it if that's what's necessary, and you can download and try a Win 8 compatible version of your graphics driver from the manufacturer's site if they don't have a Win 10 driver for example.

 

Hi Dalchina,
it had Win 10 on when I bought it as "new". I think Curry's upgraded it to Win 10 (I assume it had Win 8 on before?).

How do I find my system specs and where would I go to get the drivers?

 

System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums - Windows 10 Forums

Info? From product literature, stickers on your PC, look up your PC on the manufacturer's site, press windows key + r & then type msinfo32, do a net search for
view my hardware information
Find Detailed Hardware Information with Speccy
is first result
.....

Drivers? Look up your PC on your manufacturer's site.

Most have a list of drivers per OS,

 

Aaaarrrgh!!! It's happened again!!! How do I do a complete replacement? I have saved everything I want to keep on an external HD so I am happy to wipe the thing clean and start again but I don't have any installation discs.

 

Try changing to a different Theme and see if you get results. Microsoft has had this bug rear it's nasty head all the way back to Windows XP according to my research. Has to do with the Theme files getting corrupted. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Dale,
I'll give it a go (while I can read the dialogue text!!!).

 

Does it happen in Safe Mode?
After a clean boot?

If it's 10 days or less since you upgraded to the anniversary edition (1610) you can roll back to the previous build.
(See tutorials or search on net for info as to how).

If you use disk imaging- as everyone needs to to help recover from unbootable PCs/failed disk drive/user error/ random event (?)... then you can restore the disk image you previously created, and have your PC working exactly as it was when you created the image.
That takes typically under an hour- less if you have an SSD rather than an HDD. A huge time saver compared to a clean install, + install programs, recover data from backup, redo settings...
E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + its boot medium + external storage.

Thought: if you have a spare hard disk, try a trial installation of Win 10 on that and see if you get the same problem.
Question - is it related to the anniversary edition or sthg else?

If it is, then doing a clean install of that won't solve it.

If neither of those options is available and you wish to do a clean install you can:
- download an iso file from MS for the appropriate version of Win 10 (and even the previous build)
Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums
- create a bootable USB by downloading it from MS
USB Flash Drive - Create to Install Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Keeping the bootable flash drive or DVD is useful:
- to boot an unbootable PC (hardware faults aside)
- provide recovery options
- to use if you wish to do an in-place upgrade repair install