Today I did something rather rash. Well, actually it wasn't that rash because I backed everything up first. I decided to delete Windows XP from my main computer and install Vista.

Of course, Vista drove right over my dual-boot configuration as usual, so I'm going to have to resurrect that at some point.

The Aero UI is beautiful especially with my Geforce 6600 GT, but I did run into a bit of a problem. My monitor is a CTX VL950 19" CRT. No OS I've yet used automatically recognises the monitor settings, except Fedora Core 5 Linux if you give it some help identifying the model.

For XP, I had to get the monitor drivers from CTX to run at above 60 Hz, which is important on a CRT. Unfortunately, these drivers failed to install on Vista.

To cut a long story short, I needed a way to override the refresh rate for the monitor but I kept being greeted with a greyed-out tickbox to allow override. The solution was this:

• Create a shortcut to control.exe on the desktop.
• Right-click and choose Run as administrator.
• Now browse through Appearance and Personalisation and choose Adjust Screen Resolution.
• Choose Advanced Settings and on the Monitor tab you can untick Hide modes... and select your desired refresh rate.

Be warned: If you use this method and choose something your monitor doesn't support, it might stop working, so I accept no responsibility for anything you do here.

Hope this helps someone...