First of all, make sure you're using the latest version of Holiday Lights. Versions 4.0.2 and later work around bugs in some video drivers, eliminating some display problems.

If the problem still happens with the latest version, the cause is unfortunately a bug in your video driver. You may be able to fix it by visiting the Web site of the company that manufactures your graphics card and downloading the latest version of the appropriate video driver.

If that doesn't fix it, or you prefer not to hassle with downloading a new video driver, there are two workarounds that are also likely to solve the problem.

First of all, try simply changing the color palette of your screen. For example, if your screen is set to "High Color", change it to either "True Color" or "256 Color", and that will probably fix it.

To do this:

1. Click the Start button
2. Choose Settings
3. Choose Control Panel
4. Open Display
5. Click the Settings tab
6. Choose a different setting in the Colors section
7. Exit and reopen Holiday Lights

If this does not solve the problem, you may still be able to fix it by lowering the hardware acceleration of the video driver:

1. Click the Start button
2. Choose Settings
3. Choose Control Panel
4. Open System
5. Click the Performance tab
6. Click the Graphics button
7. Slide the Hardware Acceleration slider to the second setting (not "None", but the next one; the text below will probably read "Basic Acceleration").
8. Restart Windows

This fixes most of the problems we hear about, because it bypasses any bugs in the video driver (instead, your computer will use the built-in Windows drawing commands, which are more reliable).

By the way, we're interested to know how many people experience this problem — please let us know at support@tigertech.com if it happens to you.

 
See also:
How do I know what version I'm using?
How do I upgrade if I'm using a previous version?