help

Right click My Computer. Choose Properties.
Look on the Hardware tab for Device manager and see how your video card shows up.

adding to dklippert.
You have to have the correct drivers for your videocard for it to work.
If you don't have them it wouldn't work.
Open the computer , make a note of the manufacturer and the model of the videocard, and go to the website of the manufacturer to download the correct and latests driver for your videocard.
and then follow dklipper's procedure.

Leopold

Right click a blank section of the desktop, and select properties.

On the settings tab, you should have options for display resolution and color mode.

If you do not have the options for 256, 16 bit, or 32 bit color, you need to re-install some drivers.

Start with the chip-set / system drivers for the motherboard.

Then, if needed, install the correct version of DirectX (from Microsoft)
Do NOT install a version of DirectX newer than the version supported by the driver for your video card.

Then, download and install the latest driver for the video card.

If Windows does not properly recognize your monitor, you may need to install the monitor driver.

Chas