Dual monitor setup, relative placement lost

[awarberg]

Hi

I'm running Windows Vista Business on a Dell Inspiron 6400 (bios A14). My graphics card is an ATI Mobile x1400.

I have a dual monitor setup where I stretch my desktop over both screens. My external monitor is on the left side of my laptop, so I need to move the external display in Display Settings in order to get a consistent mouse pointer movement.

It works great BUT Vista neglects to remember, where I placed the external monitor. As a result I must move it in Display Settings every time I connect my computer to the external display.

Is there some workaround to this problem? Could I force Vista to default to a external-to-the-left dual monitor setup?

I would really like to avoid physically moving the external display

Thank you in advance.

Regards

Andreas

[cluberti]

The problem with laptops and dual-mon is that the laptop always wants to be the primary display (and that's a video driver issue, not a Windows issue). Also, when you move monitor 2 to the left and make it monitor 1, you end up with NEGATIVE relative pixel pointers, where 0,0 is actually the top leftmost corner of the laptop display, and you get into the negatives (up to the resolution size of the monitor) for the leftmost external monitor - and this can cause what you are seeing. You might want to try different video drivers, or send an email to the video driver vendor's support alias to see if you can get word from them on why they aren't saving the window position.

[nightthief]

Have you downoaded and installed the current video drivers from ATI? Using the Catalys 7.3 (last version) or 7.4 (current version), I am able to adjust the monitors relative positions with either the Catalyst Control Center or the Vista Display Settings dialog.