DIFFICULTY WITH RPG MAKER 2000

As stated in my introductory post elsewhere, I'm using RPG Maker 2000 because I tend to dissect old abandoned indie projects that I found discarded because I find it easier to see how things work when I can look at how they're actually implemented (most of the time - at least).

Despite preferring fancier graphics - I dislike RPG Maker XP because I'm learning that doing any sort of custom tileset or sprite graphics is well beyond my meager frankenspriting skills. I just found myself wading through RPG Maker 2000 games moreso than the rest and just ended up working with it.

If the problems I'm having are because 2000 is just so immensely outdated than a huge number of my problems could probably be simplified if one could recommend an RPG Maker version that I can import data from 2000 projects.

Barring that... the most pressing issue I'm having at the moment...

Attempting to create a new project or load up Don Miguel's sample has everything black. It seems as if the RTP is there... but also missing. Tilesets, black. Portraits, black. Item/skill/magic lists, blank.

The projects I've been disassembling though somehow seem to find their content just fine - including the generic RTP content.

Oddly enough, if I try to make a copy of a working project as is and then open the project in the RPG Maker editor... it blacks out. The maps are somewhat intact in that the events are in their places, with their coding, but all sprite images are blacked out as is the entirety of all the maps.

When I go to redownload the 2000 RTP I can't seem to find a working link for RTP 1.0 and the 1.32 RTP has different names for the various RAW data files. I'm cautious to just slap it in for fear that it might break all the projects that are currently working.

Any ideas?

===Edit===

It seems I was a little mistaken. Everything broke at once, including pre-existing projects that were fine moments before. I have to admit, I am not entirely sure what I did to break everything. It seems once I told this particular editor on this computer (all my other RPG Maker forays were on different computers) to make "New Project" all hell broke loose.


===Edit===

Since there's been no response for a few days, I'm just salvaging what I can and moving to RPG Maker XP. I seem to have conveniently forgotten why I disliked it.