[mrguyorama]

No, the workaround is, instead of telling windows to "draw my background as this solid color", you tell it "draw my background as this image (which happens to be a solid color)", ie Windows can paint any image to your background without delay.

From the other workaround, ie edit this registry entry, the delay is directly related to some portion of the Windows session system timing out and switching to a different session.

I wonder what's actually going on though. I was hoping this was a link to Raymend Chen

[hilbert42]

I wish I'd known that years ago. I always use solid colors for background as it's less of a distraction (I suppose if I'd alternated between an image and solid color I'd have noticed it but I didn't).

The question remains why didn't Microsoft notice the problem at the time as to the programmer it should have been obvious. But then from experience I think I've answered that already.

BTW, I've still some old machines with Win 7 so I might experiment with it.

[zamadatix]

N.b. this bug was patched in early November 2009, within the first month of Windows 7's general availability.

[hilbert42]

OK, thanks. So it looks like I'd be wasting my time testing my old Win-7 machines as they'd be patched I'd reckon.

Somewhere in my archive I've still a pre-release beta which from your comment wouldn't be patched but I don't think I've sufficient enthusiasm or curiosity to install it from scratch. :-)

[Melatonic]

I've been doing this for years (1x1 pixel image set to tiled). I assumed it was no longer necessary but figured it wouldn't hurt.

Do you have a link to the thing about the session system timing out ? Curious about how this works behind the hood even if it is patched (especially since sometimes windows bugs will rarely come back in very niche specific situations)