AE CC 2018 effects windows greyed out

Hello,

I recently bought ae cc 2018, I tried to open some particle templates (any template does it, it's not a relevant fact) and when I open them ae tells me something about merging setting for 'form' and 'particular', and ae says it can be done in the effect control window, although, that window is greyed out, and no matter what I do, close the window reinstall ae or whatever, it is still greyed out. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Because im new to ae so i may just be confused.

Thanks in advance

Also im using a macbook on mac osx 10.13.2 (high sierra)  if that helps