You may experience poor video playback performance when a tooltip appears in the video playback area on a computer that is running Windows Vista

View products that this article applies to.

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SYMPTOMS

Consider the following scenario. One of the following conditions is true:

Your computer is running a version of Windows Vista that does not support the Windows Vista Aero theme. For example, your computer is running Windows Vista Home Basic.
Your computer is running a version of Windows Vista that supports the Windows Vista Aero theme. However, the video hardware of the computer does not support the Windows Vista Aero theme.

You watch a video. You move the mouse pointer over an area of the video playback program that causes a tooltip to appear. For example, a tooltip appears in Windows Media Player when you move the mouse pointer over any of the following video playback controls:

Play
Pause
Fast forward
Rewind

In this scenario, the video playback performance may be reduced suddenly. Additionally, you may notice lost frames or other poor video playback performance.

Note You notice the decrease in video playback performance only when the tooltip is present. After the tooltip disappears, video playback resumes as expected. The poor video playback performance may be more severe on computers that have slower CPU hardware.

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WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, do not move the mouse pointer over any area of the video playback program while you watch a video. By not moving the mouse pointer over this area, you prevent a tooltip from appearing.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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MORE INFORMATION

This problem has been noticed only on computers that are running Windows Vista and that do not have the Windows Vista Aero theme present or enabled. For more information about why the Windows Vista Aero theme may not be present or enabled on your computer, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

923883 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923883/ ) You may not have the option to enable transparent glass effects in Windows Vista

For help with Aero Glass effects problems in Windows Vista, visit the following Microsoft web page:

Fix problems when Aero Glass effects are not working in Windows (http://support.microsoft.com/gp/aero_effects_not_working)

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