can't see whole "desktop"

I'm working on a friend's computer, whose left-hand most column of the desktop is off the monitor screen. I can just barely see the last bit of the letter "t" in Start (bottom left), and I can see a couple of individual letters right at the edge of the screen, the ends of names below icons at the far left. I've dragged over those that I can "grab ", but the fact remains that the left side of the screen is out of view. When I maximize webpages, the screen is bigger than what I can view on this monitor. I tried rebooting the computer, but the problem didn't go away. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Rebecca

 

My, my! NEVER would've known to try that without your input! Thanks for the instant (successful) solution!