My friend needs help, Unable to run fullscreen at 1028 x 768

Her problem is, she can download SL but when she double clicks
on the icon to open Second Life, she gets the Error Message:
First Error Message :
Unable to run fullscreen at 1024 x 768
Running in a window.
If she then goes and clicks ok, its starts transmitting data but then nothing happens.
We have tried going into properties and using every combination in settings but no luck >.<
PLEASE HELP! She has paid, and really wants to play SL.
Thankyou!
-Sam

First thing to try, is update that video driver...

What are her computer's specs?
SL needs a fairly powerful machine to run properly. Ideally a recent AGP nVidia card but ATi will work as well, with some minor bugginess. Any other graphics card / chip is not officially supported.
Make sure she has the latest drivers for her graphics card, motherboard chipset, and latest DirectX version.
Does it work in Windowed mode?

Nope, it doesn't

What are her computer's specs? Can it actually run SL?

Not sure yet, remember she can't start it up. Comes up with that Error

Sam, it really sounds like your friend's computer is just not powerful enough to run SL. However, none of us can know that unless you post the specs. Post them. If it turns out the machine itself is up to snuff, then we can start trouble shooting for the cause of the problem. I'd be 99% willing to bet though that the computer simply doesn't have the required hardware.

if you dont know ther spec's how long has she had the computer, what year was it purchased?

most computer come with default graphics, which are unable to run SL. also she will need to have a decent processor and RAM. if her computer is a year old and she hasnt purchased any upgrade parts, i feel she wont have any luck no matter how much time troubleshooting you spend. :/ with the prices i see today in the ads she could likely get a new system, or upgrades for cheap, if she is willling to invest in her system.

Right, you haven't even told us the manufacturer. Does it run Windows? Is it a laptop? Until we know what kind of computer it is, we can't really offer much advice.

I have this same problem.. I found that if I increased the resolution of my desktop it would run fine. But I don't see this as a fix, merely a workaround as I hate switching desktop sizes every time I want to play.

Anyone else have an idea?

I can't get SL to run fullscreen under Win98SE, but it runs fullscreen just fine under Linux.

SL Runs on linux? Where might I find a howto?

There are two ways of doing it, depending on how lucky you're feeling.
1) Get WineX/Cedega or compile it from CVS, and try using it to run SL. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
2) Download a precompiled version of WineX 3.3 from http://statspage.dyndns.org/SecondLifeLinux.tar.gz and use the provided scripts to install and run SL. This is more likely to work, but no certainty.

If it works for you, you'll be running SL at about 80% of the framerate you get under Windows. There are a few threads about running SL under Linux; you might want to dig them out and read them.

Please describe this part in more detail. She clicks okay, it starts transmitting data, and *exactly what* does or does not happen? Your saying "nothing happens" makes me think the entire operating system locks up or the computer shuts itself off or something, but then you say you can get into the Properties window, which wouldn't be possible under either of those conditions.

-What exactly is on the screen at this point? "Nothing" doesn't describe it. If it's all black, say it's all black.
-Also what the other people asked about the computer specs would be very helpful.

I had a friend in a similar sitch......... after trying pretty much everything, we tracked down the piece in forum suggesting colour set to 32bit...... checked and found she was on 16..... she got in.