Thanks jose7822
I find it entertaining the way art always seems to take a circular route. New is cool for a while, then old is cool again.
If you look at Windows 8 running desktop mode, it bears a striking resemblance to Windows 3.1.
The glass, the glowing fonts, the animation is all distracting for me. I only care about the work. I know you can turn some of it off but not all of it. The multicolored stuff I could not get rid of in Aero. It’s ugly. It is horrible.
I think we need to keep this in context, as it seems that those who are complaining are doing so in relation to a program which isn’t yet feature complete, hence the starting of this thread by a staff member.
I think you’ve got your threads crossed 
Hi folks,
<I hope this is the correct thread for me to post this question please. It seemed appropriate but I don’t mind if a Moderator chooses to move it elsewhere>
Anyway, I just upgraded from Artist 7.5 to Artist 8 this afternoon. But I am not able to open Artist 8 due to a persistent error message :-
I do not have a clue what this is/means I am afraid and so I would greatly appreciate any help and advice here please. I hope that it is something which is not too technical 
Secondly, since purchasing and registering Cubase 8, I am no longer able to update my eLicenser neither. I already have Windows 7 and have been running my Steinberg products on this OS ever since I first purchased Cubase Artist 6 around 3 x years ago. The error message reads :-
Many thanks in advance…
Paul Seaman
You elicenser is to old, just download the most recent one
Raphie,
Ok, thank you very much. I will check this out tonight. It must be a fairly recent release because I last checked around Oct/Nov for such updates. Maybe they provide these quite regularly?
Best,
Paul
<Seems there was an update on 11th Dec last so I downloaded and installed it thanks. Just need to sort out the ‘AERO’ issue with my (new!) ‘Cubase Artist 8’ now. Cheers.
there you go! Enjoy. Regarding areo, just choose black als colour and minimize transparency. It’s not so Teletubbie translucent
Hi Raphile,
Cheers, I was not aware of the December updates.
Regarding areo, just choose black als colour and minimize transparency.
I tried Artist 8 again but I am afraid I still can even get it to open. Are these colour/transparency changes made within my PC settings, or within Cubase (ie you need to actually OPEN Cubase to be able to adjust these settings [which I can not do at the moment]) :-
I just get the same (above) message (unless, as I say, the changes are to be made outside of Cubase)?
Ta,
Paul
You have to turn on AERO to be able to use Cubase 8 (both Artist and Pro).
You have not enabled AERO atm, hence the error message.
Hope this helps.
Paul,
First, if you haven’t already, do a quick verification of your Windows 7 personalization / theme settings.
- Right click on your desktop.
- Select personalize from the popup menu
- You should see three groups - My Themes, Aero Themes, Basic and High Contrast Themes.
- If you have something under My Themes and it’s not saved, first save it just in case.
- Now select any of the themes under Aero Themes.
- After you’ve OKed your way out of that to save your choice, reboot the machine just for completeness.
- After the reboot, bring up Cubase
If you still get the same error, then I’m guessing another app you’ve installed has programmatically disabled DWM. I found this article that references the API to enable / disable it, and it also says this in passing: “Because DWM uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) for desktop composition, certain applications might have to disable DWM for compatibility. Applications that take full control of the desktop, such as games that run in full-screen mode, must determine whether the DWM is enabled and if it is, disable it.”
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa969538(v=vs.85).aspx
(You’ll have to copy and paste the url as the forum truncates the link before it’s done - it obviously doesn’t like the closing paren.)
So, if explicitly selecting an Aero theme and rebooting didn’t solve the problem, then you probably have another app that’s programmatically doing it. If this app has a component that’s always running (a Windows service, a task bar icon, etc.) it could keep it off all the time. Alternatively, if it was sloppy coding, it might disable it and then never re-enable it when the app is shut down.
With that in mind, I’d give some thought to what you’ve installed recently, before Cubase 8, in the past few months. Games would be a good first start. The problem here is that if you do have such a conflicting app that wants DWM off (and insists on it being always off), then you have a conflict in your environment between that app and Cubase 8, meaning you have some choices to make.
Should this be the case, I would imagine there’s a registry key somewhere to turn it on and off. You can find it, set the value both ways (on & off) and each time save that key / value as a .reg file. This would enable you to double click on the reg file to turn DWM on or off. Of course, screwing with the Windows registry is not for the faint of heart and I don’t know your level of geek comfort, but it’s another possible solution to your problem.
Anyway, I hope this gives you another couple of diagnostic paths to help chase down the problem. If you’ll come back with your results, I’ll try to help if I’m able until you get this sorted.
Hi Chris,
Thank you very much indeed Chris, that was most helpful and kind of you mate.
I followed the exact above instructions. Cubase8 failed to respond the first two attempts at opening it (though the DWM message no longer appears). Now that I have changed my Desktop image to one from the AERO gallery, does this mean then that I now have to KEEP this AERO default as my desktop screensaver? Or if I change it back again to what it was before (a beautiful ‘HALion 5’ backdrop!) will this mess it up again(?) :-
Fair enough, Cubase8 opens (thank you very much!) but the AERO gallery choices are totally bloody awful :-
Now that I have been able to have a peak at what Cubase8 looks like, is this correct please because (for reasons unknown to me [and which in my opinion did not need changing anyway]) the whole RECORDING DATA (in the middle) section has been drastically shrunk(?) :
I never use any GAME type programs. And the only software I installed last month was ‘GIMP’ (a very poor man’s version of ‘PHOTOSHOP’ for much lack of a better description. So I am not sure if this may be the culprit?
I will try this out on my WINDOWS 8 PC shorty…
Best,
Paul
Glad to help, man, particularly since it got you up and running.
Now that you’ve got Aero enabled, you have a great deal of control over backgrounds, colors, etc. Right click the desktop and select Personalize again. Down at the bottom you’ll see Desktop Background. Clicking that brings you to a screen where you can click a Browse button, locate your old background and select that instead of what came with the theme.
Once you’ve done that, to the right of the Desktop Background image is a Windows Color one that will let you adjust colors. To the far right is the screen saver, and once again you can either turn it off completely or select one to your liking. You’ll also notice there’s a Sounds image so you can control all the noises your computer makes when you logon / off, click the mouse, minimize a window, etc. Some people like these sounds, others (myself included) just turn them all off. Purely a matter of preference.
You won’t mess things up by these changes because you’ve enabled an Aero theme (which is what Cubase cared about) and are now just tweaking said theme.
Having done these things, look back up to the top section of the personalization screen under My Themes. To the bottom right of that section, you’ll see a link titled Save Theme, which will let you save all these settings.
If you happen to be poking around now or in the future and select another theme by accident, you can just select the theme you saved and you’ll be back to the setup you wanted.
Gimp has been around for a long time and has a good reputation. I don’t know if it turned DWM off or not. However, I recall reading in that tech note that DWM isn’t relevant for Windows 8, so you may not have these issues in that environment.
As for the internals for C8, I haven’t upgraded so I can’t offer any insights there. I was just winging it on the Windows stuff. Have fun!
Chris,
Well Cubase Artist 8 opened straight away on my Windows8 PC without any issues (though it did take a good few minutes to open due to everything being ‘Initialized’), and I have only tried it once so far. So thank you.
Evidently nothing at all relating to GIMP.
I will test out the further changes you suggest regarding AERO on my Windows7.
Ta,
Paul
Chris,
I followed your directions and got my original desktop image back whilst having AERO enabled. I could not care for all the bells&whistles that go along with the ‘Themes’ options. Anything which beeps, buzzes or flashes drives me insane! lol
Cubase Artist 8 seems to take a long time to open due to it ‘Initializing’ each time, so this might be an issue for another thread. I did suffer this in February when I upgraded from Artist 6.5 to 7.5, and Steinberg Support kindly resolved it (via remote access), which took about 30 x min’s, but I can not remember how on earth they made the corrections!?
Cheers,
Paul