Can you try a different monitor or video card? Copy some pictures over to a USB stick and view them on a different computer? Have someone else view them without vision problems (trying to be helpful, no sarcasm).

Great idea. I'll try a flash drive on my husband's computer!

Check under Services to make sure Desktop Window Manager is turned on.

Also...go to Control Panel>Trouble Shooting>Appearance and Personalization. If there's an issue with your video card...the trouble shooting scan will tell you. It will also tell you what else might be causing the problem if it's not the video card.

HTH

Mike C. Too bad! It didn't work. Everything, both docs and pictures, looked fine on his computer. But thanks anyway.

I see I gave the wrong impression about my vision. It works fine, so long as things are clear, but trying to make things out with this blurring just tires my eyes a lot. Hubby, on the other hand, is slowly losing his sight, due to glaucoma and a twisted eye nerve, so this problem is even more upsetting for him because sometimes he needs to use my computer.

Andi: Thanks. The troubleshooting told me that the Desktop window manager was disabled. So I checked services.msc and brought up the little box where I could change its starting type. Turns out, it is "started" and the type is "automatic," but those two things are greyed out, so I can't change anything. What is strange is that when I run the troubleshooting again, it still tells me that the DW Manager is disabled, and both fonts and pictures are still blurred.

Services requires a Restart if there are any changes to its settings. Try restarting and see if that makes a difference. As for it being "Started"...Trouble Shooting started it for you as their corrective measure.

I have sight issues, biwa...with AMD...so I'm very sensitive to blurry fonts. I find that I have to go in and run through the Clear Type settings on a regular basis. I credit the need to do it to my own sight issues but I'm often amazed at the number of times that I've needed to do it recently. I rather suspect that it isn't always my eyes. By the way...you and I have the same system.

I'm running Firefox 55.0.2 browser and lately, Firefox is having a field day with their updates. I'm not completely happy with their latest update and I've begun to wonder if I can attribute some of this blurry font issue to them.

Aside from the above...I'm at a loss for any more helpful suggestions but I will follow this thread to see if anyone else has a better idea.

I, too, plan to follow this thread because the screenshot posted by biwa45 doesn't have a blurred look to me. Maybe my eyes are sending me mixed signals? :-)

Rosie

The graphics services on the two of my PCs I checked were Intel-specific and not the program mentioned. If you have an Intel microprocessor, that may be why default Windows code is disabled because the others run in their place.

Did you try following Mike's suggestion, by connecting another PC to the monitor and see what happens? My money is on a hardware problem in the PC that's not worth fixing, or a monitor issue. How old are each?

Rosie...LOL. Can't have you having eye sight problems. My day would be so utterly blah without your Smile of the Day thread. It's the first thing I look for every morning...fuzzy fonts or no fuzzy fonts. :-)

To everyone who has helped: The problem got solved in a strange, but very simple way. I remembered (Thanks, Mike, for suggesting trying a different monitor.) that I had a small extra monitor stashed away that was not in use and hitched it up to the computer--in the process, removing the VGA connection and power cord from the "bad" monitor. Amazingly, the images showed perfectly clear on this small monitor.

Then I knew it was the big old monitor that was at fault, so I tried something I found at the Dell site, which was to have only the power cord plugged in and press certain buttons on the monitor and follow directions to do a reset. Nothing happened, except for the usual floating boxes with stripes of bright color. I began to think about ordering a new large monitor.

But when I connected the old monitor to the PC for one last time, it had apparently reset itself anyway (reminding me of resets we have done by unplugging when the router was misbehaving), and things were back to normal. As a bonus, a problem I'd been having (which I thought was unrelated to the blurring), of the screen saver not closing when I moved the mouse, has also gone away.

Tulsa Rose: I am dumbfounded. Your eyes are fine. There is no question that the picture showed blurring when I first captured the screen image and when I posted the picture (as you can see from my comment in the first paragraph of my original post); so I was utterly amazed to read your post and see how my posted screen shot had changed. Not only that, but the original file of the screen shot itself that I had had on my desktop in order to post here, and which I had to retrieve from the Recycle Bin, also no longer shows any sign of blurring. What the...? Does a faulty monitor, when it gets fixed, sneakily go around trying to fix past damage? I can't imagine that it could know or reach out far enough to fix what I posted on Houzz. (It reminds me of the phenomenon that quantum physicists call "spooky action at a distance.") Perhaps Houzz cleans up faulty images? But the change in the picture in my computer is a mystery.

I've wasted more than a day on this and taken you guys' time as well. Next time, whatever seems to have gone crazy, the first thing I do will be to unplug it from both the power source and the computer. And I can't thank you all enough for supporting me during the trouble; it helped me keep going.

Biwa...I think you've got it! I'm going to reset my monitor before my next log in. I've been moving my office equipment around for the past couple of days and I'll betcha unplugging and plugging not only the monitor but everything connected to my surge protector may have done the very same thing to my system. I'll know for sure tomorrow. Thank you soooo much for coming back and posting your findings.

Biwa, thanks for the update. I'm happy for you because I know computer problems can drive you crazy. In cases like yours, the simple solution usually solves the problem just when you are ready to throw monitor and computer out the back door. :-)

Andi, hopefully when you get things rearranged your vision will also clear up. ;-) I'm delighted to know my eyes are OK...seems like everything else is going downhill fast. Ah, the joys of aging. lol!

Well, ladies...things are looking much sharper this morning. And I've learned another lesson in computer-is-tics. Some things in life are better left alone...despite my overwhelming desire for neatness and organization. ;-) It would seem that resetting my monitor has done the final trick. Now...if I could just find an equally easy solution for my macular degeneration...I'd be in heaven!

Otherwise, Rosie...I refuse to give into this downhill trip. ;-) I have a lot of qualities that I rarely...if ever...pay much attention to...but the most valuable of all of them is my innate stubbornness. That alone will keep these aging eyes and creaking bones meandering on year after another year. I count each new one with continued amazement. I slid into the 78th one this year and see no reason why there shouldn't be many more additions to it. Just the challenge of this virtual world should keep me on my toes far into the future. And as long as you keep a smile on my face each day...life is joyful. :-)

Other take-aways - one, it's rare that deep into-the-weeds settings in Windows change unexpectedly or need to be checked, absent anything else changing in the setup. Or that an average user lacking true hardware knowledge can assess such problems. And three, it's easy to do a Google search and absent an in-advance understanding of the subject matter being discussed, be misled that the word search has come up with something that's either relevant or useful.

Andi, you made me laugh...one of my daughters recently told me I was a stubborn old fart. :-) Regardless what negative issues may be going on with me, I keep on smiling and stay positive. Of course, I'm positive I'm a nut case but do I really care? Heck No, Boy. A rather twisted sense of humor has helped me over a lot of hard times.

i, too, am a life long member in good standing of that old fart club. As a matter of fact...I hate to think what my life might be like without that honorable seat...and a shared sense of humor. I'm convinced they're the tools of longevity. Plus an abundant supply of patience. LOL And...as the NY Times pointed out this morning...a few good cups of black coffee on a daily basis. But I digress. Fuzzy font mystery seems to be solved. See ya at the Table. :-)

Amen to that, Elmer! There were certainly a lot of suggestions I found that I needed to weed out what might be useful and what not, but felt I was in over my head. However, desperation can make us try things that maybe we shouldn't. The return of the blurring of every picture in my computer, in addition to the ever-present font blurring, may ironically have been brought on by something I did, trying to fix things.

By the way, I didn't get back to answering you before, but my computer is about 4 years old, whereas the tricky monitor may be 7 or 8. I know the monitor's age because when we bought my present PC, my husband (not needing the space I do for music and pictures) got my old one, bought in 2010, but I kept the monitor that had come with it. We got a new, much bigger one for him for his bad vision. I wonder, what is the average life of a hard-worked monitor?

Andi: I am so pleased that my troubles ended up helping you solve yours! My husband has twisted eye nerves and glaucoma and his sight has been slowly declining for years; he uses a magnifying glass to read books now. I am so sorry you are suffering from macular degeneration; that is a horrible thing to have to cope with, and I hope you will be able to keep enjoying your computer for a long time to come.

Rose: No worry, I can see the screen just fine now, without the distraction of those shadows. In youth, I had better than 20/20 vision. Now it's hard to thread needles and I need glasses to read the running news notices at the bottom of the TV (admittedly, it is the smallest Samsung we could find), as well as to drive and read signs, but not for computer things... Though if you see me at a distance on the street or in a store, don't be surprised if I don't recognize you until we get closer! Having reached 80, I am not complaining, so long as the rheumatism allows me to keep walking. A shout-out to everyone here who is standing up against the indignities and inconveniences of age! It was encouraging to know there are some other elderlies, as a foreign friend once called us, still keeping their joy in life. And to any young whippersnappers, you'd better hope you will be where we are one day, indignities and all, the alternative being.....you know! :-]

A monitor as culprit is what I expected. Depending on the brand and the individual unit itself, it may go for many more years or be on its last legs.

The monitor I'm using started acting erratically about a year ago. After a week of unacceptable hi-jinks, I was getting ready to replace it when it decided to buckle down and resume normal behavior. It's been fine since. Who knows what or why?

It can be software issues (inside the monitor, not the PC), hardware issues, a decision to become temperamental, bugs and ghosts or old age. I'd say your monitor is past middle age by now, whether it lives to a ripe old age or dies sooner is hard to assess. Time will tell. No need to be overly patient if it starts acting up again, new monitors are less expensive than when you bought what you have now and tend to have sharper images.

Good luck

I will hold that threat (of my buying a new monitor) over its head! lol Next time, I plan to get a slightly bigger monitor too, though nothing as big as my husband's. The size and arrangement of my computer desk will limit that.

Wasn't Elmer Fudd a cartood character? (If so, our age is showing!)

Larger screens are more reasonably priced than some years ago and you may find one easier to use.

Yes, a cartoon character. Elmer's "speech impediment" was the source of the Saturday Night Live Barbara Walters parody with the character Baba Wawa.

Kill the Wabbitt

Finances being what they are, I'll be sticking with this old monitor till it gives up the ghost. Could buy one now, but just being careful in case we both live to be 90 so we can continue eating! However, this monitor had better mind its P's and Q's from now on!

I never knew before where Baba Wawa came from. Thanks for the link.

Rose, are you still writing that Smile of the Day thread? I could use one of those. How can I find it?

Mornin' biwa. I'm not Rose but meandering by with empathy...here's the link to today's smiles. Hope your day is filled with pleasantness...and smiles.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4830976/smiles-for-today-aug-28?n=3

Oops! Almost forgot. Here's the link to the Kitchen Table where you'll find daily smiles...and us. Come join!

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/kitchentable

Good morning to you, too, Andi. Thanks a lot!

My pleasure! :-)

biwa45 sorry I missed your post yesterday but looks like Andi got you all fixed up with the links. The Kitchen Table is a great place to hang out so grab your coffee cup, pull up a chair and start taking part with a lot of fun people. :-) I have a lot of fun searching out things to post in the Smiles for Today topic. Of course, I see lots of images that are so inappropriate they make my eyes cross and I gasp out OMG! lol!

Rosie