How do you move - explanation inside

TMasuer · 09 Nov 2010

Here is the situation:

Dual monitors
Secondary goes down - have no spare; working with one monitor temporarily
The computer has not been rebooted, so the OS thinks there are two functioning monitors in place
Open a window via the start menu or visible shortcut
This window was previously opened and closed on the secondary monitor, while it was still working
This window is now in the secondary monitor space, and is therefore not visible - impossible to find by moving the mouse into that space and clicking blindly
In XP (not sure about Vista) you had the ability to r-click on the open window's "instance" (not sure what it's called) on the task bar, and the menu contained move.

Click move, and if you know how to do it, you can grab that window and bring it over to the main monitor. That move function is not there in W7. What is the alternative?

Thanks in advance.

Kari · 09 Nov 2010

Open desktop context menu by clicking left mouse button on an empty spot on desktop and then right click. Choose Screen Resolution, choose Show desktop only on display X, where X is the number of the monitor you can still use. Now all windows should be visible on your display.

How do you move - explanation inside-showdesktop.png

- OR -

Use keyboard shortcuts to move a window. Here's how:

- Click the taskbar icon of the window you want to move to make it active
- Press ALT + SPACEBAR
- Press DOWN ARROW
- Press ENTER
- Press and hold down LEFT ARROW if you want to move the window to the left, RIGHT ARROW if you want to move it to the right

If the window does not move, the reason can be that it is maximized to full screen. If this is the case, the procedure is the same as above with two extra steps in the beginning to restore window so it can be moved:

- Press ALT + SPACEBAR
- Press ENTER
- Now follow the steps from above

A tip: if you still have problems to move a "ghost" window, open an explorer window, for instance your user folder, on the display you still can see, and practise the above mentioned procedure. This shows you what happens after every keystroke, and helps you to understand how it works and troubleshoot why your hidden window is not moving.

Kari

Orbital Shark · 09 Nov 2010

And, pepending on the arrangment you can press WIN+P and select 'Single Display' from the options.

Alternatively right-click the desktop and select 'Screen Resolution' and click the 'Detect' button. Windows will detect that there's only 1 display and give full control to just the 1 display.

OS

mlevy · 09 Nov 2010

You can also hold down the Windows and shift keys and press either the left or right arrow (depending on which way it has to move if both monitors worked) and the window moves to the appropriate monitor.

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts You Must Know

I got the link from another (very old) post on this board.