MangoUse DMZ and you get a kick in the dick. Premium Member join:2008-12-25 www.toao.net |
Mango
Premium Member
2012-Apr-5 11:12 pm
[WIN7] Dual monitors questionI'm using Windows 7. Is it possible for the OS to detect whether or not my secondary monitor is powered on?
And when powered off, move all the windows from the secondary monitor to the primary monitor?
I don't use two monitors often but once in a while it would be handy.
Thanks, Mango |
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dave Premium Member join:2000-05-04 not in ohio |
dave
Premium Member
2012-Apr-5 11:17 pm
1) Yes it is (since the monitor reports resolution, obviously the state of being off differs from the state of being on).
2) No it doesn't (one supposes that if you turn off the monitor displaying window W, it's because you don't care to see window W). |
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MangoUse DMZ and you get a kick in the dick. Premium Member join:2008-12-25 www.toao.net |
Mango
Premium Member
2012-Apr-6 12:43 am
Thanks. |
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to dave
said by dave:2) No it doesn't (one supposes that if you turn off the monitor displaying window W, it's because you don't care to see window W). Just tried it here now and when I turned off my external monitor (I'm using a laptop with an external monitor hooked up for two monitors), it bought all my windows over to my laptop monitor. When I turned the external monitor back on, too bad it didn't move the windows back. Blake |
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It will pretty much depend on the apps for the most part. Some video drivers have the option to specify which monitor a particular app uses. Some apps save their position to the reg or an INI file and simply open up "off screen".
At work, my laptop extends the desktop to an external monitor. When I use it away from my desk, I have to drag some apps back to the primary. Some apps have secondary windows that don't have a handle on the taskbar to right-click>move. I've had to go into the reg and modify the location. Over the years I've learned which apps don't play well and make it a point to run them on the primary to save it as the location for the next time it is launched. |
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dave Premium Member join:2000-05-04 not in ohio |
to Link Logger
I need to be more exact. On all desktop systems I have used, if you simply turn off the power to one display, nothing happens. If you run the control app to say that you now only have one monitor, existing windows of the orphaned monitor get moved.
Quite likely a laptop will have some arrangement to detect the external monitor being powered off and take some action, since laptops tend to be used in a more dynamic monitor config than desktops (the external display is used when docked, or a video projector, or whatever). |
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said by dave:...existing windows of the orphaned monitor get moved. That is very different than closing apps that were last open on the external monitor and then turning off the computer only to have no external monitor the next time it is powered up and the app remembering the coordinates where it was last open. Some display drivers may better deal with it than others. A lot of my clients have dual displays with display drives that mess up if another person logs on, even via RDP. Some also lose their preferences if the computer is powered up before the second display is. |
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dave Premium Member join:2000-05-04 not in ohio |
dave
Premium Member
2012-Apr-7 10:20 am
I don't think it's a driver issue - there's nothing actually incorrect about an app wanting to position itself off-screen. Even if it's inconvenient for the user. It probably comes down to whether the app compares the saved location versus the current display extent (using the Windows builtin multimonitor support, it's just one big display). But that's not the sort of programming I do, so I'm not sure of the exact mechanisms. |
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said by dave:I don't think it's a driver issue... I wouldn't go so far as to call it an "issue"... more so a "feature". At work we have many setups with large arrays of monitors using a variety of video cards with different drivers. Some of them have a feature that lets you specify which monitor a particular app opens up in. Some apps will always open windows "centred" on the display which may be the sum of pixels for all monitors combined. This centre could be off-screen if the driver does not detect the current state. If an app opens off-screen, usually it's as simple as right-clicking it on the taskbar, chose move and then hit an arrow key which causes the mouse to anchor to it, and drag it into view. It's the secondary dialog boxes or windows that don't have a handle on the taskbar that make it much more challenging. Over time you learn which apps are poorly written and avoid dragging them to the second display. |
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·Carolina Mountai.. Synology RT2600ac Linksys E2000
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to Mango
I'm typing on a laptop with 16x9 (1600x900) screen, and a VGA port configured as a 1920x1080 display..
This VGA feeds a scan converter, to feed our HDTV via HDMI.
Now I normally DO NOT have the scan converter powered up.... (Not powered up now)
However.... If I move my mouse to the right, it goes off screen, to the 1920x1080 screen, EVEN THOUGH the Scan Converter is NOT powered up.... If I make the window variable, grab the window and move it to the right.... It GOES AWAY!!!
It's going through all the motions of having two screens without the scan converter powered up
And it remembers this configuration on every power up, and it doesn't matter if scan converter is powered up or not... W7-64 |
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What you have may be both a blessing and a curse. Ideally the OS should detect that there is not a second monitor and adjust the screen metrics. The problem is that often those that do detect and adjust, will rearrange the icons on the laptop display despite the metrics of the primary display not changing. {argh}
Perhaps if the VGA cable were disconnected, the OS may detect the absence. The standard pinout for a HD15 VGA port includes 4 bits for monitor ID which may be influenced despite the converter being powered off. On some of our computers, if I connect a powered off monitor, the video card keeps the screen res but if I power up the computer with no monitor attached, it reverts to a lower res. |
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·Carolina Mountai.. Synology RT2600ac Linksys E2000
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to Mango
In our case, it's a blessing...
Wife can now sent video to TV easily. All she has to do is plug in scan converter, and connect audio connection to headset output....
Can you imagine if she had to configure display properties, too??? I'm pleased it acts this way! |
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psafux Premium Member join:2005-11-10 |
to Mango
as mentioned, it depends on what the software is designed to do. There is no single correct answer. Drivers, OS, individual applications all have a hand in how this works. The monitor itself has very little to do with it. |
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Up until last year, it was mostly specialized installations like production control rooms that we setup with multi-display arrays, mostly because multi-display video cards were expensive and the failure rate high. Only a few power users and laptops were setup as twin-head and they were easy enough to train.
Our current desktop hardware platform has both a VGA port and a DisplayPort++ and so can easily accommodate a second display. We now have a lot more rote users that are being challenged by how these displays misbehave. Top that off with our local helpdesk being eliminated and helpdesk getting centralized, has me getting confronted by the rote learners often. |
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