KB0053: think-cell is slow when Netmeeting's Desktop Sharing feature does not shut down

Cause

think-cell uses hardware acceleration to render its graphical user interface. To test whether hardware acceleration is enabled and functioning properly, please open the think-cell data sheet. It should be rendered as shown in the screenshot below:

think-cell datasheet rendering example when hardware acceleration / DirectX turned on

Without hardware acceleration, the think-cell data sheet looks like the screenshot below:

think-cell datasheet rendering example when hardware acceleration / DirectX turned off

A common cause for hardware rendering being disabled is Microsoft Netmeeting's Desktop Sharing feature, which does not shut down properly due to a bug in Netmeeting shipped with Windows 2000. Microsoft resolved this problem under Windows XP.

You can find out if Netmeeting is really the cause for your problem:

  1. Go to Start → Run... and type dxdiag.
  2. Open the Display tab.
  3. If Netmeeting is running or did not shut down properly, DirectX features are Not Available and there is a comment regarding Netmeeting in the textbox at the bottom as shown in the screenshot below.
dxdiag tool to check hardware acceleration status for proper rendering of think-cell components

If dxdiag shows that DirectX features are available and enabled, then Netmeeting is probably not the cause for your problem. In this case, please read KB0051: I received the error message "An error occurred when displaying the think-cell user interface.".

Solution

To work around the Netmeeting bug under Windows 2000 and shut down Desktop Sharing,

  1. enable desktop sharing by launching Netmeeting,
  2. select Tools,
  3. select Remote Desktop Sharing...
  4. and enable it by going through the wizard.
  5. Close Netmeeting.
  6. Right-click on the desktop sharing icon (not the Netmeeting icon) among the taskbar icons on the lower right of the screen,
  7. choose Exit,
  8. go back into the desktop sharing configuration and disable Desktop Sharing,
  9. and reboot.

Hardware rendering should be restored.

For more details on similar topics, please refer to: