Windows 7 - Screen resolution different in Windows and 7MC

I am confused by the screen resolution of my Windows 7 Media Centre PC. I'm running Win 7 Pro with a 16:9 widescreen monitor which claims to have a native resolution of 1366 x 768. I've never been able to set that in Windows or the video driver.

7MC has the monitor set to 1024 x 768 (4:3) but nevertheless shows a fullscreen image with a 16:9 aspect ratio and works perfectly.

When I first installed Win 7 the desktop was also set to 1024 x 768 but the image was stretched horizontally so that it filled the widescreen but was horribly distorted.

I discovered that setting the Windows desktop to 1148 x 648 (16:9) almost fills the whole display, just leaving thin black lines on either side and filling it vertically. As this is the correct aspect ratio I was happy to live with the slight reduction in size. 7MC is unaffected and continues using the whole screen at, presumably, some secret alternative to 1024 x 768.

Since the 648 vertical resolution is being stretched to 768 to occupy the full height of the monitor I presume the 1148 horizontal resolution is being stretched by the same factor. This would make the horizontal resolution 1361, very close to the 1366 x 768 the monitor wants.

I took screenshots of both the MCE screen and the Windows desktop, expecting that the image dimensions would be related to one of the preceding resolutions. However, they are both 1952 x 648, with the actual screen image in the left hand 1148 x 648 area and an empty desktop section to the right. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Somewhere and somehow there's a lot of rescaling or cropping of the monitor image and I'd love to know what's going on. I need to know this because I'm trying to set TunerfreeMCE up and want to tell it the screen coordinates of various buttons on a flash catchup service for a particular channel so it can trigger play etc. I just don't know which coordinate set to use!

The display adapter is a Radeon 9600...did I mention this was old? I had exactly the same problems with Vista previously, have just upgraded and would like finally to get it right.

I'd be really grateful if someone can explain what's going on or please advise if I should post in the MC area. Thanks

tasks --> settings --> tv --> configure tv or monitor
Select the same resolution as what you currently have to Win 7 desktop.

Thanks, Lemur.

MC TV Setting gives two choices: 720p or 1080i. Neither gives a display image as clear as the 1024 x 768 setting MC currently has and neither is offered on the desktop where the only choices are 1162 x 648, 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600. I'm still baffled!