Charles Lavin wrote:
I was able to half-blindly navigate through a Device Manager tree and
delete the nVIDIA video driver. When the PC rebooted, it exhibited
the same behavior as before. I verified that it is now running a
standard Microsoft video driver through a remote Device Manager
display from another PC.
CL

"Charles Lavin" wrote in message
...
Hi --

I have a Windows XP Pro SP3 box that recently installed some
automatic updates, and now I can't get a legible screen out of it.

When the computer boots, it displays the Windows XP splash screen
just fine. The subsequent dialog it displays with the status of the
startup is not. For starters, it's a fraction of the width it's
supposed to be. The Windows XP graphic across the top of the dialog
displays OK, except that it's cropped after the "Wi" in "Windows".
All the status messages displayed below show up in a scrunched,
compressed type that's impossible to read.

The login dialog has the same problem. The dialog is a fraction of
the width it's supposed to be. The prompts, the entry fields, even
the buttons are all squashed and pretty much illegible.

When the desktop finally displays, the desktop icons look OK but
their captions are all squashed. The Start button is screwed up. Any
menu or dialog I pull up gives me illegible type. The exception on
the dialogs is the title bar. The text in the title bar always looks
normal. But any text inside the dialog is almost impossible to make
out. I managed to navigate my way through the Desktop Properties and
reset the resolution of the first monitor to 640x480. It didn't help
solve the problem.

I thought about reloading the video drivers, but with this display I
can't tell what I'm doing.

I tried rebooting into Last Good Configuration mode. No help.

I tried rebooting into Safe mode. No help.

I tried rebooting into VGA mode. No help.

I tried connecting via Remote Desktop from another PC. I get exactly
the same results on the Remote Desktop screen (which I can now
capture and send to any interested party).

Near as I can tell, the PC is otherwise working OK. But since I
can't see what I'm doing, it's pretty useless in this condition.

I can open IE and navigate to a Web site. All the prompts, buttons,
the Address bar, etc. are illegible, but if I do manage to type in a
URL into the Address bar without making a mistake, the Web page will
load and look normal.

I can open Word. Again, all prompts, buttons, etc. are illegible,
but I clicked on the first document in the Recent Documents list and
the document came up and was perfectly legible.

How do I go about fixing this?

Thanks,
CL
================================
Once again...

Did you try doing a System Restore to a
time before you installed the updates?

--

John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk