They were all checked, I did try to change them to match yours without effect.
I also tried to uninstall deskscapes including removing settings/dreams, and then rebooting, then reinstalling 11.01 without effect.
However eventhough I selected to remove all stored settings, I noticed some of them didn't change back.
When I played with the direct show option (I assume the middle choice EVR is the default), i did at one point get 1 or 2 windows called Activemovie that showed the animated background playing.
Also when I use the clearing buttons in Advanced, I can see the background appear for a moment before turning black.
I also tried the option to never pause, no effect.
I also tried turning off the option for deskscapes to takeover fences blurring background, and even turning off fences chameleon feature, no impact
also tried to turnoff taskbar transparency (0%) in start 11 changing it to default. No impact (changed it back).
So when the issue happens both the taskbar and the desktop are pitch black but when i take a screenshot of them to show you, they are all white in the screenshot like so:
When I try to restart explorer, I also see the windows version on the desktop bottom right, before the blackness covers it
I tried with (correct aspect ratio on external monitor) checked/unchecked. The setup is 2K HP laptop set to HD with internal monitor connected to external Asus monitor via HDMI, external res 1920x1080. Display set to show only 2 (the external monitor) as below.
I noticed when i apply the background from deskscapes, the only option is apply to all monitors. apply to specific monitor is greyed out. Not sure if this is causing the problem but this was always the setup and it always worked before that recent windows update.
also in the preview and as a screensaver the animation works so it doesn't seem to be a codec issue.
