My 2-year-old son likes typing on the computer and has pressed something which has turned the computer settings to permanently 16 colours at 640 x 480. Whenever I reset the colour and resolution to their original values Windows must be restarted, but the settings do not hold. The computer is an older Dell running Windows 2000.

This problem generally indicates incorrect video card drivers are installed, so Windows is defaulting to the lowest colour and resolution settings (so the display is pretty much guaranteed to work on any type of video card). Therefore, we will need to reinstall the video card drivers. Dell computers usually come with a Resource CD (a.k.a. driver or utilities CD) which contains all the drivers for that particular model of computer. If you can locate the CD, load the CD. The CD should either automatically install the necessary drivers, or will prompt you to select which model of computer you own and will then display the relevant drivers. Once the drivers have been installed, restart the computer and the display should be back to the normal settings. If not, you may need to manually set the colour and resolution settings. Go into the ‘Display’ control panel and set the colour and resolution to higher values, then click OK and the display should be correct.

If the computer did not come with a Resource CD or you are unable to locate the CD, you will need to obtain the drivers from the manufacturer’s website. First, you need to determine which model of video card is present in the computer. The Windows Device Manager is unlikely to provide useful information, since the incorrect video drivers are installed at the moment. So, you may need to consult the documentation which came with the computer, as this should list the computer components. Once found, you will need to download the Windows 2000 drivers for the video card from the manufacturer’s website. Make sure you only download the drivers from the manufacturer’s official website, to make sure you are receiving the legitimate drivers without any viruses or other nasties. Once downloaded, extract the drivers into a folder and follow any instructions for installation. If no instructions are provided, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Settings > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel. In the window that appears, click the ‘Hardware’ tab and the ‘Device Manager’ button. Expand ‘Display adapters’ then right-click on the video card and select ‘Uninstall’. Once the drivers are uninstalled, restart the computer. Windows should automatically detect the video card during startup and open the New Hardware Wizard. You can then point the wizard to the location of the drivers on your computer.