I have recently purchased a factory second PC and loaded Windows XP Home Edition onto it. Everything went fine except the monitor display settings were'nt right. So I went through the procedure :-
"Start"
"Control Panel"
"Display"
"Settings"

At this point I noticed I was unable to adjust the "screen resolution" from "800x600 pixels"
or "colour quality" from "16bit"

so I clicked on "advanced" but the "monitor" option was not open

so I went to "adapter" and "properties" and "device usage" and clicked on 2do not use this device (disable)" thinking that this would offer me another monitor option and then I would be able to adjust the settings to suit.

Obviously, I now know that this was a bad idea, as I now have no monitor use at all and this makes fixing the problem a tad more difficult!!!!

Can anybody help, please??

Thanks

Try booting into Safe Mode by repeatedly tapping the F8 key after your BIOS POST but before Windows starts.

Go back and Enable your Device.


What you need to do then is to ID your Device and find the latest drivers.

Does the Device Manager list your Display adapter?

I have much the same problem I formatted my computer and reloaded me but have a different monitor. I too cannot change the resolution which I need to do and it onloy shows 16 colours and im sure that it used to show 32 bit etc as well. The monitor I am using does not appear to be in the monitor list but I am unable to establish the make of the monitor. The only info i have os on the back of the monitor and appears to be a german make.

Any help or infornmation would be very glady received.

Thanks

Pandora,
I sorted my problem by reloading and then activating my copy of Windows XP. Once it had been activated online, I restarted my PC and the resolution was perfect. It may have been just a coincidence but it certainly worked for me. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Claytonjohn, I will try that later tonight and see if it works for me - information much appreciated

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