Start screen messed up after uninstalling

from Stardock Forums

Hi there. Here I am, after three system restorings thanks to Decor8.  :annoyed:

I know I'm not the first one to have this problem, but I'll try to be the one who explains it better...


My Decor8 trial period expired and I decided to uninstall it (it worked perfect all the time, but I can't buy it right now). All the uninstalling process goes well, no problems. If I'm not wrong, after the uninstalling the program asks you to reboot Windows, so I reboot it.

After rebooting Windows, this is how my start screen looks like:

 

The easyest way to describe it is that looks like that Decor8 deleted the Star Menu backgrounds (or disabled them, I have no idea), so the Start Menu and the desktop show together. 

The start menu is usable, but the icons have the annoying effect that leave images where they go through:

 

If you go to the desktop, you can do nothing but moving the mouse. The icons seem to respond but take a loooong time to act (for example the window that appears on the captures), so you can do nothing. Nothing appears if you right-click on something. Ah, and the desktop background disappears too. 

 

So, basically, all Windows 8 gets messed up and unable to be used.

¿Solution? I did a system restore. After it, everything went back as before uninstalling Decor8:

At this point, as you can see on the pic above, you find that because the trial expiration, the background on the start screen is just a plain colour, there's no drawing scheme. So, without uninstalling Decor8, I go to the customization options of Windows 8, and try to change this (I want at least those ugly drawings that the Start Screen had, not a plain colour!), but it doesn't work, you can change any colour you want, but you can't select a drawing scheme. I mean, you can select any of them, but nothing happens, the Start Screen continues having the plain colour you selected as background.

 

So I decided to try uninstalling Decor8 again. 

 

This time before uninstalling it, I installed the program again, just to prevent any problem that the program could had any problem that cause all this mess when uninstalling it. So after installing it and rebooting, I uninstalled again Decor 8. And the mess gets back again. =____=

 

So... I did a system restore again. And we get back to the beginning.

 

I looked for some info about this, and thats when I saw I'm not the only one with this problem (you have some examples even in this forum: https://forums.stardock.com/438361). 

One interesting option somebody said in another forum was this:

 

Right click on My Computer, Manage, Service and Applications, Services, right click stardock Start8, properties, Start Type (set it to disabled).


I tried this, and fter rebooting the result was exactly the same as uninstalling the program.

 

So you know what? I had to do a system restore again! xD


And here I am, without being able to uninstall Decor8, wich remembers me that the trial period expired every time I turn on Windows 8, and without being able to do anything on the background of the Start Screen except changing its colour.

 

My configuration:

- PC: Asus S1 (Atom dual core, Nvidia ION II, 4 GB RAM). 

- OS: Windows 8 Pro Media Center (64 bit).

- Complementary customization programs: Oblytile: allows to change the Start Screen Icons (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1899865) , Classic Shell: a free alternative to Start8 (http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/). But as I said, even using these programs I had no problems with Decor 8.

 

So here I am, asking for a solution for this. :(

decor8
4,317 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Go to c:\program files (x86)\stardock\decor8.  Does that directory still exist?

If so rename any files in the directory.

Go to Services.msc, is Stardock Decor8 listed?  If so set to disabled.

Reboot.

Decor8 changes do nothing unless Decor8 is running so if the directory does not exist then this is nothing to do with Decor8 and I have a feeling the problem may have come about due to some other application you may have installed to customize things.

It may be that because Decor8 handles the background when the trial has not expired any problem that occured on your system wasn't obvious until Decor8 stopped doing so which is why stopping the service makes the problem show up.

One additional thought, your Windows install is activated isn't it?

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Having looked around the internet I see no other reports of this, just two from today in this forum (this one included).

There was some thread about a slow machine on another forum, but from what I could understand the thread was originally about Start8 (hence the advice about the start8 service), and it seems different to the problem you are reporting as theirs was slow and they had a blank menu, not a menu which was quick but lacked a background.

My gut feeling is you have a corrupted system file or a corrupted user account.  If you have another account on the machine, does it show a background?

I must stress that Decor8 makes no changes to any System files and should not be capable of corrupting a user account either.

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi there, after some time I'm back.

 

The only solution that worked to solve this damn problem was formatting and reinstalling Win 8... 

 

Quoting Neil, reply 1
Go to c:\program files (x86)\stardock\decor8.  Does that directory still exist?

If so rename any files in the directory.

Go to Services.msc, is Stardock Decor8 listed?  If so set to disabled.

Reboot.

Decor8 changes do nothing unless Decor8 is running so if the directory does not exist then this is nothing to do with Decor8 and I have a feeling the problem may have come about due to some other application you may have installed to customize things.
End of Neil's quote

I tried this. Renaming the files and disabling Decor8 made the problem appear again.



Quoting Neil, reply 1
It may be that because Decor8 handles the background when the trial has not expired any problem that occured on your system wasn't obvious until Decor8 stopped doing so which is why stopping the service makes the problem show up.

One additional thought, your Windows install is activated isn't it?
End of Neil's quote

My Windows 8 is activated and original, yes. And I didn't had any problem in my PC. I just uninstalled it and all this happened.

 

I loved this program, and I was going to buy it (promise), but now, being clearly sincere, I don't have balls to install this again and "suffer" the same problem again.  

 

Thanks for your attention.

PD: one comment about the program, it's great, but the license you buy should not work only for one PC, at least it should work for all the machines under the same IP or something similar. I wanted to buy Decor8 for two of my computers and I think 2x5 € is too much for a software that only changes a background. Example: Steam or Google Play allow you to buy the program one time and using it in all the machines you want under the same account.   

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting vajoiner, reply 5
"Having looked around the internet I see no other reports of this, just two from today in this forum (this one included)." What kind of answer is that?




Sorry I'm late to the party.

In addition to all the problems kieroregistrarmeeur is having, I cannot access any windows for anything at all. 
End of vajoiner's quote

If Decor8 has been totally uninstalled (check the c:\program files (x86)\stardock\decor8 folder to be sure), then it is doing nothing on your machine.  The only two OS changes it mades which would persist are the number of rows in the start screen and the lock screen which is set via Microsoft provided APIs.  If you have just uninstalled then reboot as things may continue running until the next reboot.

It is possible you have encountered some sort of HD or account corruption thats unrelated to Decor8.