Forcing applications to open on a second display?


  1. frogs
    Posts : 11
    Windows 7
       New #1

    Forcing applications to open on a second display?


    Hello all. I was hoping someone could help me out with this problem.

    I have two displays. My first is 1680x1050, my second is 1920x1080. When I run an application, it always opens on my first. For some things this is a problem -- namely applications like Team Fortress 2 or XBMC, things which run in fullscreen and determine their resolution limits at launch. I want to play Team Fortress 2 in fullscreen on my secondary display, but it just doesn't want to let me.

    The ideal solution would be some way to tell Windows that I want certain apps to open on Display #2, not #1. Is there some launch option that might do this, the way you can create shortcuts with "-windowed" suffixed?
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  3. not so gray matter
    Posts : 1,506
    W7 Ult. x64 | OS X
       New #2

    Well you can tell the particular applications to open in Windowed mode and drag them to the particular display you wish to use. The Windows shortcut to move a window to the next display is Win+Shift+Right/Left

    You can also change your primary display to the one which you'd like to play full screen applications on.

    The more user friendly solution is to purchase or download an application which can manage dual displays a bit better than Window's native functions. Here's a list...

    Realtime Soft UltraMon
    DisplayFusion
    Actual Multiple Monitors
    MurGeeMon

    As far as TF2 is concerned, you can use the launch commands "-noborder" and "-windowed". The first command will cause a windowed game not to show borders then second command simply forces the game to run in windowed mode. "-noborder" should force windowed mode.

    To use these commands you can either append the commands to the end of the shortcut target line or you can add it to the launch options within the steam games window itself. Right Click Game > Properties > Launch Options
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  4. frogs
    Posts : 11
    Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    Yeah, I tried opening it in windowed mode and moving it over. The problem with that is that because the program initiated in 1680x1050, it keeps that as its limit, and won't let me increase the resolution when it's on the 1080p monitor.

    I run DisplayFusion Pro, which doesn't have the ability to deal with this, but I'm looking at the other applications you linked. Thanks for the suggestions.
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  6. frogs
    Posts : 11
    Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #4

    Unfortunately, none of those applications offer a solution.
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