Step 1

Right click on your desktop, and up will pop the menu. You need to select “Properties” at the bottom, and click on it, which will bring up the Desktop Properties Window

Step 2

As you can see, there are seven tabs. The one we want is on the top row, furthest right – the “Settings” tab. Position your cursor over it, and give it a click!

Step 3

OK – This is where we can make some changes. There are two areas of this tab that we’re interested in. One – at the bottom left – controls the number of colours your monitor will display and the other, to its right, controls the resolution of the display.

Step 4

This is where you set the number of colours you want displayed onscreen

There’s a selection – this will vary with your graphics card, so you may not have every colour depth shown here. True Color (Americans can’t spell!) is the one to go for, or 16 bit color at the minimum

Step 5

Just to the right lies the resolution slider. As you can see, my desktop is set to 1600x1200 – don’t try this at home unless you’re using a BIG monitor! You can slide this to a setting that suits you and your monitor – see the previous instalment for some advice on reasonable resolutions, but aim at 800x600 as a minimum

Step 6

OK – now that your monitor is set to display 1024x768 in 24 bit colour (or whatever you’ve chosen), let’s take things one step further. Windows 9x has the ability to change resolutions “on-the-fly”, but you’ve got to set it up to do this. Click on the “Advanced” button on the “Settings” tab, and this set of tabbed pages will appear. Make sure that the middle radio button in the bottom section is clicked and then….

… make sure that the “Show settings icon on task bar” check box is ticked. When you’ve finished, you see, you will be able to right-click the little monitor icon in your task bar, and change resolutions as the fancy takes you – it’s invaluable.

David Dorn