I had to do a repair install of XP Professional the other day because of various problems, but I won't go into that.
The first problem was that when I logged on, Windows created a new account for me ("Tom") instead of logging on to my original account with the same name. In Documents and Settings there is now "Tom" and "Tom.DESKTOP" (the .DESKTOP referring to my Computer Name), but when I log on with the username "Tom", it logs into "Tom.DESKTOP". How do I set my old user area to be used with my logon name again!
However, this is not the main problem. There appears to be a strange problem with certain icons: all MSN Messenger, Norton SystemWorks, and Microsoft Office shortcut icons are not correct - they just have the icon of a "file" (when a file has no extension) if you see what I mean, as if they are invalid shortcuts (which they are not). The icons are the same for all documents which open in Office applications, and here's the weird bit - I can't change them! In "Properties" of the shortcuts "Find Target" and "Change Icon" are greyed out, but all the shortcuts work fine.
This problem may be linked to my main problem which is the one in the title:
I have a Radeon X600 Pro (PCI-E) and it was working fine before the repair install.
Now, in device manager the display adapter has a yellow exclamation mark, and in Properties it says "this device cannot start. (Code 10)". This is the same for "Radeon X600 Pro Secondary" which is for my TV-out I think.
So far I have tried the latest and some older ATI drivers and the latest Omega drivers (modified - from Guru3d) to no avail. I have also removed and reseated the card, and changed a few settings in the BIOS like "assign IRQ to VGA" and some others which I can't remember off-hand - all with no success obviously (otherwise I wouldn't be posting). I am pretty sure this is the cause of yet another problem - in Display Properties, there are NO TABS at all, the Themes settings are shown but with no tab, and there is no Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance or Settings.
However, if I switch between Windows Classic and Windows XP themes, the tabs are displayed, and I can modify settings, but when I click Apply, they disappear again. After I installed the Guru3d Radeon drivers the display adapter was reported to have no problems, and after changing the theme to get the tabs, I could change my resolution, and I thought it was fixed, but after a restart the display reverts back to.....errr 1024x800 (not 640x480) which seems a bit strange and the display adapter "cannot not start". Also, the system font used on windows and buttons is not right, it actually looks better than normal, smaller - and switching between ClearType and Standard does not change it, although this may be normal when the graphics card isn't working properly.
One last problem is that now (contrary to before) I receive a "It is now safe to turn your computer off" message when I shut down instead of it shutting down automatically which is something to do with ACPI apparently, but as everything to do with ACPI is OK as far as I can tell, I think this problem may be to do with the graphics card not working (some forums have also mentioned this)
I have attached an image containing snapshots of a Word shortcut, and the tab-less Display Properties window, along with an image of a normal Display Properties from Visualwin, showing the difference in fonts.
So far I have researched all these issues with no solutions and I would be very grateful if anyone could assist me.