Could the problem be linked to your Firefox shortcut (desktop shortcut or pinned taskbar button)? There are a bunch of checkboxes on the Compatibility tab that could possible cause issues. To check for that, either:

• Desktop shortcut: right-click the icon, choose Properties
• Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, right-click Mozilla Firefox, choose Properties

Windows normally will select the Shortcut tab. Click the Compatibility tab. For best results, make sure no checkboxes are checked here. (Example screenshot attached.)

thanks for your quick response, none of the "compatibility" buttons were checked... if i open firefox through the programs list it does the same thing

Let's try this; Type about:preferences#advanced<Enter> in the address bar. Under Advanced, Select General. Look for and turn off Use Hardware Acceleration.

Type about:addons<enter> in the address bar to open the Add-ons Manager. Hot key; <Control>(Mac=<Command>) <Shift> A)

On the left side of the page, select Appearance. Then select Default.

Now restart Firefox.

THATS IT! all i needed to do was uncheck the hardware acceleration, what does that mean for performance? i feel like my computer is pretty well capable of running with hardware acceleration, is it something with my video card maybe? all bonus questions but thank you all so much for your quick responses and getting to the bottom of this all!

A+

Hello,

I am glad to hear that your problem has been resolved. If you haven't already, please select the answer that solves the problem. This will help other users with similar problems find the solution more easily.

Thank you for contacting Mozilla Support.

I have filed a bug report; 1310933 - Firefox 49 changes windows (7) aero theme to basic once opened

ekips009 The bug people would like you to answer some questions. Please follow this link;

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1310933#c1 Could you type about:support in the location bar and copy here the section "graphics".

jscher2000 said

Could the problem be linked to your Firefox shortcut (desktop shortcut or pinned taskbar button)? There are a bunch of checkboxes on the Compatibility tab that could possible cause issues. To check for that, either:

• Desktop shortcut: right-click the icon, choose Properties
• Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, right-click Mozilla Firefox, choose Properties

Windows normally will select the Shortcut tab. Click the Compatibility tab. For best results, make sure no checkboxes are checked here. (Example screenshot attached.)

UPDATE!! So i had to do a fresh install of Firefox because it had gotten removed on accident and the problem was back again! went through the hardware acceleration steps and it was still changing back to basic, then i went through the compatibility settings under the "shortcut" properties and "disable desktop composition" was checked, unchecked it and now were all good again! so last time nothing was checked from the get go, and it was the hardware acceleration checkbox, and now its the compatibility tab check boxes... maybe you guys just fixed the problem initially? either way just wanted to update and thank you all again!

p.s. FredMcD i just updated on the bugzilla site, sorry for the late responses

That was very good work. Well done. Please flag your https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1143455#answer-943596 post as Solved Problem so others will know.