Multi-monitor control

OK, this one is subtle, and probably NOT obvious.

For many years now, I've used a multiple monitor setup on my PC here in my office. I started doing this back in the W98 days, which was the first Microsoft OS capable of multiple monitor support. All it requires is enough video adaptor cards/ports for the number of monitors you have... back in the W98 days, it could support up to 9 monitors, but I've been using 5 for quite a while. Presently, I drive a 22" LCD monitor from the motherboard's video port, and four other monitors (3 glass tubes and an LCD) from a pair of dual-output ATI video cards.

Until about three months ago, the relative positioning of the monitors on the desktop was constant. The center monitor was always the 'home' screen (with the toolbar at the bottom). Also, the positions of commonly used applications were somehow always 'saved'... for example, when I light up Outlook, it always shows up on the leftmost monitor, which is where I left it the last time I shut it down... similarly, commonly used icons appear on the rightmost monitor, where I put them. Also, the resolution of each monitor was also saved; the center screen is 1680 x 1050, and all the others are 1280 x 1024.

As I said, this worked perfectly until about three months ago. What changed? I replaced a 19" tube monitor with a 22" Viewsonic LCD.

Since then, when I boot the system up, the relative positioning of the monitors, and thier resolutions, has been inconsistent. One of the monitors always comes up as 800 x 600, and I have to use the 'settings' panel to change it. I also have to reposition the toolbar and icons.

So, the question is: does anyone know where the information about the relative positions of applications, the relative positions of the monitors on the desktop, and the screen resolutinos, get saved?

Is it a registry function? Or is the mechanism elsewhere?

When I installed the new monitor, did the installation of drivers muck this up and can it be restored?

The Whole World Wonders...

 

Hi,

The "motherboard's video port" (graphics controller) should have a "control panel" in the System Tray (right click on the icon). Use that to make the settings, don't use Windows display settings.

See if you can get the drivers for the monitor reinstalled. If the monitor is listed as "Default Monitor" then the correct drivers are not installed. I would expect that it should run on Plug and Play monitor drivers, but if there was a disk supplied with the monitor check for specialized drivers on that or at the Viewsonic website. Edit: even if the monitor is listed as using Plug and Play drivers and there are no specialized drivers for it, I would still uninstall and reinstall those.

Matt