Win7 will not display or save desktop theme...

I going to guess Aero is not enabled. Let's try something really safe.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/01/13/how-to-turn-on-and-enable-aero-in-windows-7-enable-aero-peek/

Let's hope it's that.
Bob

OK!! FIXED but Windows code is still the root cause!! This equivalent problem has bugged me for MONTHS! I have four Windows 7 machines of very similar architecture. Two have this problem and one began emulating this yesterday.

RECAP: Every time windows opens there is an Unsaved Theme. No existing saved themes seem to be used thou they are functional and saved in the user directory. The usaved theme is similar to my saved theme but intermmitently it loses the slide show. Displaying only the last picture used. BUT, it always loses the presentation, setting it to Stretched as opposed to Fit.

This fix DOES NOT involve any Upgrade (clearly that is only a patch and the problem can return).

After setting everything how I wanted it and saving that theme. Through REGEDIT I looked at the Control Panel/Desktop in CURRENT USER and noted all of the settings. I then went to HKEY USERS and set ALL of the sub functions that contained similar Desktop data to the same settings. Two were NOT equivalent!.

Problem eliminated! Only Save themes are used after reboot and so far it appears stable.

Caveat: There are only Two Users on my machine, both are me. The newer one was created to investigate whether a new profile, identically structured, contained the issue, which it did not.

I repeated this on all machines and it appears to have fixed the problem. I don't think the source creator is fixed as this is clearly a coded Windows issue, but the problem is fixed without reinstallation or new profile creation, and it is repeatable.

I'm using an asus g73jh laptop which i'm positive
some of you are using too...

follow these steps and the nightmare is over:

Click Start and type Power Options in the Search box and then click Power Options from the list
In the Select a power plan window, click Change plan settings next to your currently selected Power plan
Click Change advanced power settings and then click to expand the Desktop background settings option
Click to expand Slide show and make sure that the Plugged in: option is set to Available
Click OK and then close the Edit plan window
Restart and....Presto.

I experienced this problem and followed all advice here and elsewhere to no avail. One suggestion (by jlitzza) led me to go look at Registry entries and the Wallpaper entry pointed to a JPG file. Since my machine was showing nothing but a black background, I thought I'd take a look at that file to see if there was a relationship.

When I tried to open the file, it said the image was corrupt. So, I simply to a JPG photo I had on my machine and replaced the corrupt image with the good photo, and all started working immediately.

The image was located at:

C:\Users\{userName}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

And the image name was "TranscodedWallpaper.jpg". This is the file that was corrupt.

I'm using a multi-image desktop theme.

Hope this helps someone in the future.