no display icon in device manager + no video acceleration

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.video (More info?)

After installing and unistalling age of empires 2, my XP
pro box won't recognize 3d acceleration even though I
have installed directX 9.1.

When going to device manager, where there used to be a
display icon, there is none anymore. I get around this by
right-clicking the desktop, selecting setting and then
advanced, then adapter tab. In the adapter information
box, it all says unavailable (while in the past it used
to show SOMETHING) abd to make it more confusing, the
troubleshoot part of it says that hardware acceleration
is enabled - all the way to full. Also to make it even
weirder, when clicking on properties on the adapter tab,
the device status syad it's working properly (???).

When going to dxdiag, the display tab says I'm using the
generic video driver and that 3d acceleration is not
enabled. It is a presario 3000 (originally came with xp
home but I upgarded to pro) laptop and after downloading
and starting the installer their latest driver, I got an
error saying that the VGA device was not found - so no
installation actually took place.

The result: my latest games (Ut2003, wacraft 3) don't
work, so please help! - anything greatly appreciated!