OK, I was running the latest Win7 nVidia driver from the Windows Update web site, but rolled back to a Vista driver that is the latest available on the Dell site for my machine. I got the same results with both. If it's a driver issue, I'm out of drivers to try. It's a notebook, so it's not like I can swap out the video card. I have no video issues with any other software, including MC 13.
The problem seems to appear only under the Drives & Devices section when I have a device connected. It appears when I connect my phone or my Zen. I usually run a split screen with three tabs in the upper pane and three in the lower, with the device appearing in one of the lower tabs. When the device connects, all of the tabs in the lower section disappear and the buttons that should appear below the tabs are invisible; the upper set of tabs remain visible. Clicking in an area yields an appropriate action. The buttons are there. They're just invisible. The tabs are invisible, too. If I click where one of the other tabs should be, that tab will appear with all of its buttons intact and the other tabs visible again. I have also tested the Drives and Devices section with only one tab visible in non-split mode and the results were the same: no buttons. Starting an action does not cause the button to appear, either. I ran a sync job without ever seeing the Sync button.
I am going to hop on my soapbox again, but if this software did not have those #$@%$@@# skins, this would not be a problem. It is bad enough that the close button is nowhere near the upper right corner so that I have to look for it each time I want to close the program, but now this version of MC doesn't display buttons correctly. Maybe I'm wrong to blame skins, but a skinless version of MC would still be a blessing.
I am upgrading to see if MC 14 resolves an issue regarding syncing with my new phone. I don't want the software to get fancier. I just want it to do what it already is supposed to do better. For me, changing from MC 13 to 14 is not an upgrade. It's a downgrade.