Microsoft updates kill Aero Interface

I finally managed to recover my niece's laptop (Vista Home Premium) - thanks
But after updating Vista, surprise! The aero interface is gone, and there is no way to bring it back. The 'appearance' window only has a lot of Aero entries but they won't even show up in the preview pane. It's gone.

This happened twice (the first time I thought I had not correctedly recover the system so I did a full recover from scratch).

How do i fix this?

I had some 25-30 updates automatically applied as soon as the ***** detected the Internet connection. Don't tell me I have to apply one at the time until I discover the single culprit.
Anyone has had this problem? A search on google did not show up any relevant results.

 

The Aero Interface is usually tied to the video card you have on the system. Have you tried updating the Video Drivers on the system to restore Aero?

 

Yes, I did, via the Lenovo update center. It says the video card drivers are updated.

 

No offense but writing over existing video drivers is never a good thing. The best way to install the latest video drivers is to first uninstall the previous drivers and making sure there are no traces or you can wind up with your situation.

In the past I got messed up by first installing my video drivers on my T60 (ATI X1400) then installing Lenovo's latest drivers. Never a good thing.

I would suggest unistalling your video drivers, then run driver sweeper, then you can install the latest Lenovo drivers. As the previous poster eluded to it appears your video drivers are causing you problems.

I forgot to mention. One you can try is to select an Aero theme, usually the WIndows 7 default Aero theme. See if Aero gets enabled that way or run the WEI benchmark test.

 

Since you are running VISTA this link may be of some help
Troubleshoot problems with Windows Aero

 

Thank you all for your suggestions.
Regarding the video drivers installation, I simply ran Lenovo Maintenance Center (or whatever it is called) that told me the drivers were already up to date. No installation took place since 2010. It's good advice to do a clean up before installing, though.

Josea, the MS Fix It tool did find a problem, but - unsurprisingly - failed to fix it . But it told me the problem was that the Windows Manager wasn't started.

So, I recalled I had installed Vista Glazz (kids, they want the eyecandy). Fired it up, restored the original DLLs, restarted and...
... Areo is back.

Thanks folks, your help is very much appreciated (and repped).

I will come back with a USB speed problem in a few days