If my taskbar turns to a light blue color, does that mean I've been hacked?
Why does the taskbar change color to light blue?
This can happen under the following circumstances:
Your machine is running low on resources. Windows may disable aero when this happens.
When you run a program that is not able to support Aero. Windows will change the theme to
Windows Basic.You are running dual monitors and one of the monitors is not set to 32 bit color depth. Windows requires 32 bit color depth on both monitors in order to support aero.
You are running a program that requires maximum performance and that program disables Aero - as pointed out in the answer by Xan.
Windows Aero is the premium design of Windows 7. It looks really pretty, like glass (Windows, get it?), and it exists for the sole purpose of showing off then-recent graphical advances. You're not being hacked. Windows is disabling Aero and trying to save itself from shutting down because downloads are so heavy! If you'd like to re-enable it, just follow these steps: http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-turn-aero-back-on-or-re-enable-it-after-being-disabled-in-windows-7 Hope this helped!!