Unable to Modify Themes

I just purchased a new Toshiba Laptop with Windows 8 installed. During set up I've installed the following:
Classic Shell
Windows Essentials
Office 2003
iTunes
Firefox

For some reason, I am unable to make any changes to the Desktop Theme. If I try to select an image the background reverts to a solid color. If I try to disable sounds it doesn't take, and if I try to modify the Screen Saver that doesn't activate.

It's entirely possible I disabled something in the initial set up, but I'm not sure how to recreate it. I also thought that perhaps Windows Essentials was the problem, but I faced the same issues after uninstalling it. Is there a way to lock Windows 8 from changing your theme that I may have inadvertently selected?

Hello RSoxNo1, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Double check to make sure that you Windows 8 is activated. If not, then these features may be disabled until you do.
If it is activated, then you might see if this below may be the issue with the desktop background being a solid color.
Are any of the options you are trying to set grayed out or has a restricted by administrator type message? If so, please post a screenshot showing them.

Thanks Brink, I'm not at home, but according to the System in Control Panel, Windows is active. Nothing is grayed out, and I will play around with the Background link when I get home. Failing that I'll start posting screen shots.

Ok mate. I'll be here.

So, it looks like it's not keeping the setting where I deactivated the touch pad as well (I prefer a mouse). Do I need to make a Microsoft account in order to have this level of personalization on my own machine?

I've synced my account with a Microsoft ID and I'm still unable to change the background. If I select a photo other than the Toshiba one it will default to a black background. Also, while the theme doesn't seem to indicate on the screen shot, it looks like my sound profile and screen saver settings are being retained.

Just as a test, uninstall Classic Shell for now to see if it may be affecting this somehow.

Do you have these issues in any other user account?

This is the only user account on this machine. I'll uninstall Classic Shell when I get home. I also got a BSOD this morning with the error:
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (win32k.sys)
I assume it's unrelated, but at this point I don't know. I'm tempted to re-image as I've only had the machine for a couple of days.

If you wanted to try and sort the BSOD issue, then you might post about it in the BSOD Crashes and Debugging area to see if we may be able to help.

http://www.eightforums.com/bsod-cra...e-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

I uninstalled classic shell, rebooted and that did not fix the problem. It does appear that it is keeping other personalization settings in place (Colors, Sounds, Screen Saver) even though it's not letting me save the theme. I am still only able to display a solid color background or the generic Toshiba background.

In that case, you might consider to refresh or reset Windows 8.

I created a new user account. This is probably a dumb question but is there a way to move all the files from the User Account that's having problems to the new one? The new one seems to be working correctly.

Just a thought on the account that is not working correctly.
You could log into it & run sfc /scannow in administrator command prompt.



When it gets done run -

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

in administrator command prompt - (takes up to an hour to finish)



Then restart & run sfc /scannow again.

Doing these scans might fix it.
Or not.
It's worth trying.