Old thread, but since I recently had the same issue
(black meshes and no textures in blender 2.76b) with my new computer with win 11 installed, I solved it by installing Blender 2.78c. Textures are now showing again with this version and the interface & functionality is mostly the same as in 2.76.
You can import textures into Blender easily enough. If it's a version of Blender below 2.80 you can add a material and import the texture that way, or you can import a texture into the UV editor.
To add a new material:
1. Select your mesh (I think it has to be in object mode but I'm not sure).
1. Go into the materials tab and click the "new" button.
2. Go into the texture tab and click "new."
3. Still in the texture tab, look for "image" and unfold it.
4. You should see a button that says "open." Click that and open your texture.
5. In the 3D viewport switch to texture viewport shading.
6. If you still can't see the texture on the mesh press N to open the side panel.
7. Look for "shading" and unfold it. There is a button there that will say either "multitexture" or "GLSL." If it says "GLSL" try switching it to to multitexture. If it's set to multitexture try switching to GLSL. (I can't remember which one you need. I think multitexture).
To open a texture in the UV editor:
1. Select your mesh and tab into edit mode.
2. Press A to select everything.
3. In the UV editor, press A to select everything.
4. In the UV editor, click the image > open image (or Alt + O) and open your texture.
5. To see the texture, use steps 5 - 7 that I wrote above.
A couple of important points:
1. Adding a texture in the UV editor has the added bonus of being able to move/adjust UV islands and see the changes on your mesh in real time.
2. If the mesh appears black in the 3D viewport it could be that you need to add more lamps and/or reposition the lamps.
3. OR, if you've added a new material and don't want to deal with lamps (you want even, ambient lighting), you could just delete all your lamps, go the world tab, and put a checkmark next to "environment lighting." Then you can play with the energy level.
To be honest, I never learned how to deal with materials or shaders in Blender 2.79 and below. I'm in the process of learning it now but I'm using Blender 3.3.
