Shadow box stuck on desktop

Hi,

I realize that there is a shadow box stuck on the computer. I will try to help you with this issue.

Suggest you to boot the computer in a clean boot state and check if that helps. A clean boot state will help us to determine if any 3^rd party service or application is causing this issue.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: After you have finished troubleshooting, follow the steps under “How to reset the computer to start as usual after troubleshooting with clean boot” in the article to boot to normal startup.

Reply with the status of the issue and we will be glad to offer our assistance.

This has been a problem on my system, where sometimes, but not always, random application windows would leave their shadows on my desktop background which were very persistent, requiring a re-boot to get them to go away. It has been bugging me for years, and I tried many different things to prevent it, from updating the graphics drivers, to changing screen resolution, color, etc., On my system these only affect the background, never appearing over application windows, so they were a minor annoyance that I simply ignored until a re-start was required.

Finally, another forum (I apologize for not recording which one; I have looked at so many) offered a suggestion that worked for my system, equipped with Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate, running dual nVidia K5000 graphics cards.

This trick only clears the shadows that occasionally accumulate during normal use, and does not prevent them from re-occurring:

Right-click the desktop, select "Personalize", change the Windows theme to "High Contrast White", and then change the theme back to your favorite.

This worked for me, but your results may be different since a lot of tricks that worked for others didn't work for me; I suppose it has to do with the way Windows, the computer's chipset, and the graphics processors interact.