Windows XP appearance reset

I work at a computer store, and someone brought us their computer because their windows were all black... so I'm looking at it, and I realize that he made it all black in his settings so I can't see anything at all to change the settings back, and I was wondering if there was a file or something that I could alter to restore the visual settings to default thanks much.

 

This is directly from Microsoft's Knowledge Base:

To resolve this issue, follow these steps to disable the Agp440.sys service.

Important You must know the administrator password to complete the following procedure. If you do not know the administrator password, contact your system administrator. After you complete this procedure, any video adapter driver you have installed will be disabled, and Windows XP will use default VGA drivers.
1. Insert your Windows XP CD-ROM into the computer CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer from the CD-ROM.
Note Some computers may require that you modify the basic input/output system (BIOS) settings before you can start the computer from a CD-ROM. For information about how to modify the BIOS, see your computer documentation.
2. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. Press the number key that corresponds to the installation that you want to repair, and then press ENTER.
4. Type the password for the administrator account of that installation, and then press ENTER. You receive a drive:WINDOWS> prompt, where drive is the drive on which Windows XP is installed.
5. Type listsvc, and then press ENTER.
6. Make sure that the Agp440 service is listed, and that the startup type is set to "Boot".
7. Press ESC.
8. Type disable agp440, and then press ENTER.
9. You receive a message that the registry setting for this service was found, and that its current startup state is "service_disabled".
10. Type exit, and then press ENTER.
11. If you are prompted to start in Safe mode or Normal mode, start in Normal mode.
12. Log on to your computer.
Windows XP includes default video drivers that make it possible for your monitor to work. However, some features may not work as you expect with these default drivers. Update your motherboard chipset video drivers periodically. To do so, visit your computer manufacturer's Web site, and download the most recent drivers for your video adapter.

The full article can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324764/en-us I just cut-n-pasted the important part... This will disable the video drivers (and, therefore, all the video settings) and should allow to you fix whatever is wrong. You may need to reload the video driver, or at the very least re-enable it... Good luck!

hd2k

NOTE- I haven't personally used the above steps to fix any video settings (I've never had to). Try booting in Safe Mode first, uninstalling the video driver, and rebooting in normal mode. I assumed you had tried this already. If safe mode doesn't do it, then follow the above steps....