Why do live preview thumbnails gray out?

[heatlesssun]

Okay, this is a question that I have since Vista and have never found much on the matter. I've see it on every Vista/7 machine I've ever seen so it much be normal.

So I think everyone knows the problem. The task bar live preview thumbnail will turn gray with an icon in the middle in an application hasn't received focus for a while. Once the application receives focus the live preview is refreshed and is a live preview once again. As though there is some limited graphics resource that tracks all of the previews or something, just my layman's attempt to describe what I think is going on.

So my question is is there some configuration or something that can be used to give the live previews more resources fix or alleviate this issue or am I just making shit up?

Thanks!

 

[chinesepiratefood]

Not sure I have ever seen this, got a picture or something?

 

[extide]

I know what you are talking about, it's like a blank document icon in the preview popup. I dont think windows 7 ever does it tho.

 

[Snowknight26]

So my question is is there some configuration or something that can be used to give the live previews more resources fix or alleviate this issue

No, it's by design. Forms that haven't been drawn yet will display what you describe.

Example: http://i28.tinypic.com/2l6cs8.png

 

[bigdogchris]

Certain types of contents can not be displayed in the thumbnails. It's normal. It also sometimes can do with if it's minimized/maximized.

 

[JonathanJ]

DWM does not draw minimized applications and will discard thumbnails after they've become out of date. A few situations aside from minimization will cause DWM to not draw windows.

Full-screen D3D games also won't be drawn as bigdog said.