Screen blinked + Alienware's customizations gone

Has anyone had this happen? Last night, in the middle of web browsing, my M17x R3's screen blinked and all of Alienware's Windows 7 customizations disappeared. My wallpaper was gone, and my theme changed to a non-aero default style.

Thinking that this was some kind of low-power mode, I checked to make sure I was plugged in and under the "high performance" profile. Both were true.

Despite having fixed my wallpaper and getting my system back to the way it looked before this ... strange... occurance... I've noticed that my Windows 7 login screen no longer has the alienware background. It's the default blue Windows 7. Not a big deal, but it's unusual nonetheless.

I'm trying to figure out what happened here, but I'm coming up short with explanations. My system literally, on its own, changed the desktop theme and now I can't get it back. I've done a number of virus scans, and they all come up clean.

What just happened....

 

That happens occasionally to me, generally after Windows Update has applied new updates, apparently resetting various items to Windows default settings. Very recently, I also get screen darkening because of the R3 switching to High Performance on its own. Changing back to Balanced restores screen brightness. Not sure where this is coming from, but could be Nvidia Control Panel settings. Still trying to isolate.

One of the easiest methods of changing the logon screen back to an Alienware custom background is to use Tweak.com's Logon Changer for Windows 7. Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Microsoft Windows 7. It handles the required Registry changes for you and will convert any .jpg to the appropriate sizing and color depth. This tends to happen over and over with custom logon backgrounds.