You've deleted your display card drivers and the system is "running home to momma" and running 16 colour VGA resolution - almost all cards have this 'fall back' mode so that you can see some sort of display to set the PC up as much as anything else.

You need to obtain and install the correct Win ME drivers for your display card - if there are any available and assuming you know what the card in your PC is of course :-)

A word to the wise - ALWAYS make sure you can get all the needed drivers for ALL your PC's components and have them to hand before upgrading an OS, this saves much pain :-)

On the XP debate - any OS that limits the number of times I can alter my system config before I have to re-register smacks of an utter rip-off to me. My machines are continually upgraded so I wouldn't touch XP with a barge pole.

That's aside from the fact that new Microsoft O-S's are in my experience an utter pain in the rear for the first 18 months or so because they are buggy, unstable and invariably have very limited compatability with other peoples software.

Actually sometimes MS's OWN software is incompatible with new OS's - which is an unforgivable sin in my book.

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if I opened up my tower and looked at my sound and video cards would the hardware tell me what model it is?

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This is unfortunately very unlikely, most PC boards carry manufacturer's part no's etc but aren't actually 'badged' with what they are. You can't tell from the chips themselves either as the same ones often turn up on may different maker's boards.

I's suggest the PC manufacturer is first port of call, most reputable makers will list the PC by model including details of what is inside the box and offer downloadable drivers to suit, which is exactly what you need.

If you have a 'clone' PC - or some home brewed concoction of dubious origin, you are pretty much on your own.

Where I work I've personally thrown away several AGP graphics cards that although I know they were working perfectly are unidentifiable and so can't be made to run properly after users have taken it upon themselves to upgrade thier PC's. :-(

If these users had bothered to look into the system properties and check what drivers are in use BEFORE running the upgrade, they could have made a list of installed hardware - including version numbers etc. and had a good chance of finding drivers for the new O.S.

Easy to be wise after the event of course, my advice having got into this position is check with the PC maker to see if you can find out what 'bits' you've actually got in your box - then hope they have downloadable ME drivers on a website/FTP server somewhere.

Al