Gather Ye Geeks, Nerds & Technophiles, I Require Your Help

[LarryFlowers]

After a great deal of thought and numerous attempts, I have been unable to create a viable Google or Microsoft Knowledge Base Search to seek an answer to my problem.

Scenario:

A desk, directly in front of the user is a Dell Latitude Laptop, 15.4" screen, running Vista and placed in a Dell Docking Station. A 24" LCD Monitor is attached to the docking station and is physically located to the user and laptop's left.

The user opens a program (for our purposes, Internet Explorer) and uses the mouse to drag the open window to the left of the Latitude screen and onto the 24" monitor .

This is normal and intuitive.

Now change only one thing... the OS is now Windows 7.

The user now opens IE and cannot drag it to the left, instead having to drag it to the right of the Latitude screen to make it appear on the 24" monitor on the left.

Counterintuitive.

I can't figure out why OR how to formulate a search to find a solution.

Gentlemen, your assistance please.

[Tom Robertson]

I've found that NVIDIA's control panel is pretty useless for letting you put the secondary monitor on the left. I always have to go into the display control panel to adjust which is left. Then NVIDIA's drivers will remember when I reconnect.

Cheers,
Tom

[rudeney]

This isn't a Windows 7, or even (gasp) Vista issue. I've had in in XP. The solution is simple. Go to your display configuration screen (Control Panel -> Display) and drag the icons for the two screen so they are in the proper position.

[houskamp]

for some crazy reason it's calling the 24 the primary display..
I remember being able to set the primary display on my laptop before..

[barryb]

Command prompt, then DisplaySwitch.exe gets you the same results?

How about the Windows key + P?

Perhaps I don't understand your question Larry. This happens all the time. :)

[barryb]

Okay.. I understand your plight. Win 7 is making the laptop the primary. The easy way out is to move the monitor in question to the right side.... or change the primary each time. I am not convinced there is another way out of this one.

[BattleZone]

This isn't a Windows 7, or even (gasp) Vista issue. I've had in in XP. The solution is simple. Go to your display configuration screen (Control Panel -> Display) and drag the icons for the two screen so they are in the proper position.

Exactly right. This has been the issue since multiple monitors were supported, but very, very easy to fix.

http://www.cwdixon.com/support/win98_support/images/multiple_display04.jpg

Simply arrange the on-screen icons to match the arrangement of your actual monitors, and all will be well.

(I just realized that it actually SAYS to do exactly that just above the icon window.)

[LarryFlowers]

Exactly right. This has been the issue since multiple monitors were supported, but very, very easy to fix.

http://www.cwdixon.com/support/win98_support/images/multiple_display04.jpg

Simply arrange the on-screen icons to match the arrangement of your actual monitors, and all will be well.

(I just realized that it actually SAYS to do exactly that just above the icon window.)

Unfortunately they left that line out in 7 & Vista...

Anyway.... problem resolved, client happy. Thanks guys!

[rudeney]

Just another note about this...if your displays are different sizes, you can align the monitor icons so that they are analogous to their actual positioning and this will make your mouse cursor move "straight" between the screens instead of jumping up or down several inches.