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Enlarged text after booting Windows 98

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8 replies

by dmcconnell 1 view

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I have a computer that is unusable because the display is messed up. During booting, the background shows up normally. Once the system is booted up though, it's like I'm looking at one little corner of the display blown up over the entire screen.If I boot in safe mode, I can see icons, but the taskbar is not visable, and clicking on the icons does nothing. The keyboard works in both cases. This is very difficult to troubleshoot when I can't see anything!

8 replies

by alpha-male

Something has wrecked your video settings.

If you can't right click and get to the properties > settings menu to change it in the present state, try booting the machine into safe mode and removing your video card under Control Panels > System. Then reboot your machine, reload your video card and reconfigure your resolution, desktop area, etc to work correctly.

Good luck...hope this helps!

by alpha-male

Ooops...missed the part about safe mode....sorry.

If you can't navigate the menus or desktop in safe mode, it could be a hardware issue. Remove and replace the video card with another and bring the system back up. After that, test your present video card and then replace it and its drivers if it's okay.

by dmcconnell

Sorry, I forgot to mention I tried a different video card. It didn't help. If I start the Windows setup, the screen is fine. I'm sure it is not a hardware issue. I blindly ran System File Checker, and from the little I could see it looks like there is a corrupt file. But I couldn't tell which one, and apparently entering through didn't replace it. Thanks for your ideas.

by ann777

You need to see the taskbar.
1) attach the computer to a different monitor and see if the taskbar is still cut off
2) place the mouse where the taskbar used to be and see if it is in hidden mode
3) Adjust the horizontal/vertical screen side so the task bar is not off of the screen

Once you have the taskbar visible, then click on start --> Settings --> Control Panel and see if you can change the Display settings.

Sometimes the install of a new program will mess up the display settings, and othertimes it is the hardware (either the monitor itself or the video card).

by dmcconnell

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm already using a different monitor. The mouse is not even visible in safe mode, although it appears fine in regular mode. Horizontal/vertical adjustments don't help. I can access the Start menu using the keyboard, but it never shows up in Safe mode.

by dmcconnell

I finally figured out a solution to this. The problem was incorrect settings in the registry. The registry entry hkey_users\.default\control panel\desktop\windowsmetrics control the width and height of the desktop items (icons, menus, windows, etc). The settings were too large. I imported these values from another computer and it solved the problem.

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