Disappearing Staff Lines
This is a bug, or problem, caused by your computer's display or printer driver. The best solution is to get an updated display driver that fixes the bug.
However, when the problem is on the display, you can usually work around this problem by turning down, or disabling, graphic hardware acceleration on your computer. Here is how to do it in Windows XP:
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Open your system's Control Panel (Start | Settings | Control Panel)
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Open the Display panel
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Click on the Settings tab
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Click the Advanced button
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Click the Troubleshooting tab
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Turn down the Hardware Acceleration slider (slide it to the left) until only basic functions are enabled
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Press OK in the Driver Properties box, then OK in the Display Properties box
In Windows 7 and Vista:
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Right cick on Desktop, Personalize, Display Settings, Advanced, Troubeshoot tab
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Move the "Hardware Acceleration" slider to "None." If no slider is visible, then your current display driver does not allow changes to be made to hardware acceleration settings.
Usually, this will correct the disappearing staff lines problem on the display.
Note: Amazingly, this problem prominently resurfaces with each new release of Windows. When Windows XP was released, many brand new PCs were likely to experience this bug out of the box. Now, the same bug is common in new Windows Vista computers. Eventually, you should be able to get an update to your system that corrects the problem. It is unclear why manufacturer's repeatedly reintroduce this bug into their drivers.
See also (some user experiences with this):