I have this weird problem

ambiguous

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6
Hi

I have this really weird problem. I recently upgraded my laptop to Windows 8. Everything went fine and there was no problem whatsoever. But recently, all the buttons inside the Metro (or, Modern) UI have disappeared. Either it shows only the outside ring with the insides blank, or boxes(like the ones that are shown on missing fonts). Attached photo shows the problem. It doesn't cause any problem since I am mostly in Desktop, but it is irritating to say the very least to see the blank buttons. Is there anyway to fix this other than re-installing or resetting the whole thing?
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
Hello ambiguous, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Do they still work when you click on them?

You might see if running a sfc /scannow command may be able to help if it's just a corrupted system file at fault.

Hope this helps for now, :)
Shawn
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Hello ambiguous, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Do they still work when you click on them?

You might see if running a sfc /scannow command may be able to help if it's just a corrupted system file at fault.

Hope this helps for now, :)
Shawn

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, all the buttons work just fine. It's just the insides that are missing.

I ran the command and it says 'Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.' So, I guess this means that there are no corrupted files.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
That's correct. It means no issues were found.

Sometimes an upgrade install may not go so well for one reason or another. This is the main reason why clean installs are recommended more.

Have you already restarted the PC to see if it may just be a glitch.

If so, then you could try uninstalling and reinstalling your video drivers to see if it may just be an issue with them causing a graphical glitch.

If that doesn't help, then you might consider refreshing Windows 8.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
That's correct. It means no issues were found.

Sometimes an upgrade install may not go so well for one reason or another. This is the main reason why clean installs are recommended more.

Have you already restarted the PC to see if it may just be a glitch.

If so, then you could try uninstalling and reinstalling your video drivers to see if it may just be an issue with them causing a graphical glitch.

If that doesn't help, then you might consider refreshing Windows 8.

I have restarted it several times but it didn't help at all. Reinstalling the drivers didn't work as well.

I'd rather not refresh the OS, since it will delete all my third party applications. Is there any other workaround? If there isn't, I can live with it. Thanks for the help. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
As a test, you could create anther Microsoft account to see if it does the same while signed in to it in Windows 8.

If you don't have another Microsoft account to test with, then you could switch your current Microsoft account to a local account, then add the Microsoft account as a new administrator account in Windows 8.

If it works fine, then you could copy what you want from the old account to the new one, and delete the old account.

If it doesn't, then sign out, and sign in to the local account, delete the newly created Microsoft account, and switch your local account back to a Microsoft account. This way you will be back to how you were before starting.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
As a test, you could create anther Microsoft account to see if it does the same while signed in to it in Windows 8.

If you don't have another Microsoft account to test with, then you could switch your current Microsoft account to a local account, then add the Microsoft account as a new administrator account in Windows 8.

If it works fine, then you could copy what you want from the old account to the new one, and delete the old account.

If it doesn't, then sign out, and sign in to the local account, delete the newly created Microsoft account, and switch your local account back to a Microsoft account. This way you will be back to how you were before starting.

I really thought this would work, but unfortunately, it didn't.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
It would appear that only a refresh or repair install of Windows 8 will fix this then.

A repair install would be the best option since you wouldn't lose anything. However, since this missing button content is the only thing that is wrong, I really don't think it's worth the trouble to do all of this for.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Hi there
Not an answer to your question - but when you eventually get it back working again - TAKE AN IMAGE BACKUP -- then if this sort of stuff happens again just restore the image (shouldn't take more than around 30 mins even on a large W8 installation - and with an SSD much less than that too). Separate OS + applications from DATA by putting it on its own disk (or partition). You should REGULARLY take backups anyway.

Use something like free Partition Wizard to dynamically move around and re-size the partitions without having to re-install the OS and Free Macrium or similar for the backups.

I've long since given up trying to fix or even understand obscure windows problems -- I simply restore -- and from an external SSD via a USB3 ==> SATA connector to the internal SSD the whole process takes between FIVE and SEVEN minutes -- far simpler and quicker than any other fix. 128 GB SSD's now are vey cheap -- probably a bit of a waste to use for fast restore - but I upgraded to newer faster Samsung 840 Pro 250 GB SSD's for the OS on all my systems so I've a few spare older Samsung 830 ones. I run VM's using these too -- makes the response time of the VM almost 100% native speed too.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
Hi there

Use something like free Partition Wizard to dynamically move around and re-size the partitions without having to re-install the OS and Free Macrium or similar for the backups.

Cheers
jimbo

For backing up your entire C: drive easily you might wish to consider using:

DriveImage XML Backup Software - Data Recovery Product

The Free version.
I use it & it works good.

Hi there

There are Loads of different ones -- actually I use the commercial (PAID for) Acronis Home 2013 - there's features that some of the Free one's don't have such as supporting e-sataIII, UEFI, protected boot etc and for DATA they can also take INCREMENTAL backups -- between full backups these only backup files that have CHANGED. Acronis also allows you to take backups and recover without having to re-boot the system - unless obviously you are doing a SYSTEM IMAGE restore.

I run a decent home server (W2K3) with up to 6/7 client machines connected - so I run automatic jobs to back the OS's as images and the data on these nightly. Acronis works just fine for this purpose - 100% automated. The whole process is "Kid Proof" and nobody has lost their music yet -- in spite of the usual silly things people do with their computers. !!!!

The point of the post was to tell the OP (and every body else) to TAKE REGULAR BACKUPS. !!!!

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
Hi there


I run a decent home server (W2K3) with up to 6/7 client machines connected - so I run automatic jobs to back the OS's as images and the data on these nightly. Acronis works just fine for this purpose - 100% automated. The whole process is "Kid Proof" and nobody has lost their music yet -- in spite of the usual silly things people do with their computers. !!!!

The point of the post was to tell the OP (and every body else) to TAKE REGULAR BACKUPS. !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

Yes, doing backups is good.

The Free version is the SAME as their paid commercial version, (for home use only).

It has lots of features including automatic backups.

A picture of it:

Untitled.png

The point of my post was to provide a good free way to backup. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
Yes, doing backups is good.

The Free version is the SAME as their paid commercial version, (for home use only).

It has lots of features including automatic backups.

A picture of it:

View attachment 23204

The point of my post was to provide a good free way to backup. :)

Hi there
This program actually has some severe limitations -- like you can't restore to a smaller partition etc. I'm often messing around and re-arranging partitions on Disks.

he NO NO of using this though is that it uses VSS - That is a 100% no no as this will need you to have space on the drive equivalent to what you are restoring before it will work or th VSS (Volume shadowing service) will fail.

Also can't write directly to DVD's / CD's / Tape cassettes -- sometimes it's quite good to be able to write to these. - Also doesn't "Multi Volume" - so if the target backup device is full it won't write to the new volume or even request a new one to be mounted (DVD / Tape).

The Bootable version also doesn't handle my Windows "Spanned Volumes" -- I have several volumes "Spanned" so windows sees it as a SINGLE volume. Acronis works fine with this. Screenshot below -- here I have TWO physical volumes spanned as a SINGLE DRIVE so windows thinks it's an approx. 4TB single drive. This is on my server and I backup the clients to this "Spanned Volume" with no problems.

I'm going I hope to upgrade to W2012 Server and use Storage pools later -- Acronis will also handle this too.

Too many limitations IMO compared with Acronis or Free Macrium.

(Using Spanned volumes means you can have files stored in Large directories - and is especially good when you have say music programs that can't handle music data bases that are larger than a physical drive - for instance say you have 3 * 250 GB drives and you have 500 GB of music - when spanning the drives as a single 750 GB drive means the music fits on it EASILY.

If you lose one volume in the spanned set you lose the lot so it *could* be risky -- I'm switching to Storage pools as soon as I get my 2012 server installed. However since I'm backing up DATA to the spanned volume and have copies of data elsewhere the risk of losing data of one of the spanned volumes breaks is not very large.

What happens is overnight Computer data from Client machines is Dumped to the server -- then individual directories are copied from the server to external disks at various periods later in the week so nothing is lost even if the server were to fail.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
It would appear that only a refresh or repair install of Windows 8 will fix this then.

A repair install would be the best option since you wouldn't lose anything. However, since this missing button content is the only thing that is wrong, I really don't think it's worth the trouble to do all of this for.

Alright, thanks for the help anyways. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
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