The strange case of transparency & memory

After taking up the offer to download perfect effects 8, which is over now by the way, I was puzzled by the fact that when I ran the stand alone browser on my computers (I tried it out on two separate computers) would end up hanging as I clicked on a photo in the browser. Looking around the install notes and the manual I saw a warning for windows users about the graphic card drivers and memory (the minimum is stated as OpenGL 2.0 compatible video card with 256 MB dedicated video RAM, 1280x720 resolution) . BUT my drivers where up to date and I had exactly the required dedicated graphics memory on one computer and considerably more on the other. Some photography related forums have similar posts from several other frustrated OnOne window's user.  The link through lightroom worked fine, so I just had to stop using the standalone version.

I was checking out some diagnostics about system tune up stuff that HP provides on my desktop computer and one item grabbed my interest it related to the screen theme and it reported that the theme I was using, the Aero style, was using its full quota of memory and my system might be faster if I just used the Windows 7 Basic theme. Ok it made a very slight, perhaps imperceptible improvememt, but only if I was looking, to browsing speed and starting up new windows. The most obvious thing Areo does is give you transparent edges on your window as if you are looking through a glass pane. It looks nice but is just cosmetic, so it didn’t bother me having it turned off. You can find where to change the screen themes by clicking on your screen background and selecting personalize, you’ll have to scroll down a bit to find Windows 7 Basic theme. The interesting outcome is the edges of my panes are still translucent?

Graphics memory! I realized this might be the missing issue for running Photo Effects 8 in standalone mode. AND it was!

So if you have a windows PC and are having problems with Perfect Effects “freezing”and “hanging” your system, try changing the screen theme, it worked for me.