Just guessing logically, I imagine 16 color mode is a long forgotten fallback from the old days buried somewhere. Perhaps there is a list of standard modes somewhere and they didn't think anyone would seriously need 16 colors on 2009 OS, so it isn't shown when in "proper" state.

I have an idea, maybe you can compare list of loaded modules in NT kernel using Processs Hacker and see if there is any difference between two states.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-05-04, 14:46:

Just guessing logically, I imagine 16 color mode is a long forgotten fallback from the old days buried somewhere. Perhaps there is a list of standard modes somewhere and they didn't think anyone would seriously need 16 colors on 2009 OS, so it isn't shown when in "proper" state.

I have an idea, maybe you can compare list of loaded modules in NT kernel using Processs Hacker and see if there is any difference between two states.

I think I tried some app which would force in 16 color mode and that failed even in the Standard VGA driver.

On PC restart Windows gives the notification about Standard VGA driver successfully installed so could it be a possible sign there are 2 drivers?

Best guess: very low level ega type driver exists in, or close to the kernel.
VGA.sys or whatever its called startup is set to boot (0) in currentcontrolset\services wherever it is under there

You could try setting it to 4 (disabled) and see what happens.

It'll probably break though. Test in a vm.