Repair Windows Aero

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FireFox has an annoying misfeature that either clobbers windows 7 aero (64-bit anyway) or allows one of its plugins to clobber aero. The problem happens because something spikes the Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) memory usage and Windows defensively turns off aero to maintain performance.

I have a lot of windows (dozens) open when I am working; so many that [Alt][Tab] is very tedious to use. Instead, I use aero peek a lot to visualize and switch to other windows. When aero gets clobbered, it is a major pain.

Instead of either suffering with the disabled interface or rebooting, I investigated, found a couple of commands to reset aero and wrote a batch file to automate them.

Copy the text between the stars (***) and save as cyclescr.bat. Open a window as an administrator and run the program to reset aero.

****

:*** cyclescr.bat ***
:
: cyclescr.bat -- Bob Trower Tue 11/01/2011 Ver. 0.00
:
@echo off
if "%1"=="" goto usage
:cyclescr
:
net stop uxsms
net start uxsms
goto end
:usage
echo +----------------------------------------------------------+
echo cyclescr (Cycle Screen) Bob Trower Tue 11/01/2011
echo Version 0.00
echo Purpose: This command will reset the aero interface if
echo it has been set off by a problem with the
echo display manager.
echo [It stops and restarts the uxsms service.]
echo Issue this command with any argument '.' to
echo reset the screen.
echo Example cyclescr .
echo Note: Must be done within an administrator command
echo prompt.
echo +----------------------------------------------------------+
goto end
:end

****

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