I'm trying to help a friend with a video problem. He's desperate to figure out what it is so he can correct it before Christmas when his five-year-old unwraps his new computer learning game.

The color needs to be set to least at 16-bit color. When he goes in and changes it to 16-bit (or even when he tries to change it to 256-color), everything behaves properly, and the computer restarts. But....when it reboots, the color is still set at 16 colors. He can't get the setting to "stick" like it's supposed to.

I had him look in the device manager window just to make sure the computer thinks everything is working properly, and it does. No conflicts reported. No cute little exclamation marks. The display adapter is a S3inc Trio 3D/2X, and the monitor is just listed as Plug & Play. Does it just need a driver update? Have any of you seen this happen before?