Originally Posted by Cressida

If you got into Control Panel, then Windows is installed on the hard disk indeed. This is difficult to diagnose from a distance, but it sounds like the monitor (connection) problem you had earlier is still there.

Do you see and hear Windows loading (hard disk activity LED + hard disk noise) even when the screen stays blank after power up?

You can try and start from scratch again of course, but Windows Setup will detect the existing installation on your hard drive, so there will be some additional options to choose from.

And don't worry, it's only a computer. You'll get there in the end (there's lots to do still, even after installing Windows).