Making Computers Behave

Today I fixed up a computer that had a ton of different little problems. Among them was the problem involving an error message that started with:

Windows could not load the installer for Display.

Once, I saw it with the word "Monitor" instead of "Display". This error came about when installing some windows updates, but was also seen when doing other things such as viewing the advanced properties in the Display control panels Settings tab. After looking around at various newsgroups, I found the following solution (though I forget where):

1. Uninstall Windows XP Service Pack 2
2. Reinstall the display drivers off the manufacturer's website (this case was Toshiba)
3. Reinstall Windows XP Service Pack 2

Note that one of the problems seemed to come up when installing the display driver that was located through the Windows Update website. Thus, it is important to install the version from the computer manufacturer's website.

This took a long time, especially because the computer was slow, but also because uninstalling, downloading, and reinstalling the service pack are very time consuming tasks.