About a month ago I downloaded and ran a program called cleanup.com in order to get rid a some spyware. The program worked fine but when I restarted the computer, the taskbar and start menu changed color. The normal color is deep blue with agreen start button with white letters. Now the TB and start buttom are GRAY with black letters. I have tried r clicking start and choosing properties. Under start there is an option to choose classic or start. Classic is not checked. Under taskbar there is option to choose, however, it does show the correct color. I have also gone to system properties and chose advanced. I checked the option which let windows choose what is best for the computer. The taskbar is still gray. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Right click on the desktop, click Properties... go to Themes, pick the Windows XP theme and click apply. See what happens.

Cheers!
Soup

I have the same problem but your solution did not work.

any other ideas???

Go into control panel -> administrative tools -> services

check that the THEMES service is set to automatic and started.

also check your Local Security Policy (PRO ONLY!) and make sure that "Force Classic Theme" etc.... are NOT checked

ok. thanks!!!!

Interesting addendum to the previous problems:

I was working on a similar problem in XP home with the task bar turning grey and after trying to change the theme to get the taskbar back to blue (did not see the message to check services, etc before,) the theme turned to BLACK. All the background was black and all the writing, noting worked, then froze. Many hours later after a system restore that did not fix it and a Windows XP repair that removed the black background so I could write off the data, but as soon as I rebooted, the black screen came back.

The repair may not have been complete since all the files were on XP CD, the installer could not read them, so each missing file was written to a new cd from a different computer and then a file copied from the second computers windows I386 folder to the cd and installed on the machine under repair.

In the Windows repair window during the install, I received a Video driver error and am now waiting for disks from HP (working on a 2004 version) to try a new windows repair that the installer will read with the video driver.

The only major change made to this computer before the problem was first a defrag by the Windows defrag program and then an install of XP service pack 3. Could be a coincidence, but ..... Thanks for listening.