Multiple screens, multiple accounts and desktop icons

[André Gulliksen]

I am running XP Pro. I have set up two user accounts: One for myself, and
one for my girlfriend. I have a Radeon-based video card with VGA, DVI and TV
outlets. A monitor is hooked to the VGA and a TV is hooked to the TV-out.

Depending on what the computer is used for, I mainly switch between three
different setups: 1) Monitor as primary display, TV as clone. 2) TV as
primary display, monitor as clone. 3) Monitor as primary display, with
desktop extended to the TV.

Changing between these setups are usually done from my user account. On both
accounts the desktop icons are set up to be sorted automatically by name. My
icons stay in place, but my girlfriend has complained that her desktop icons
keep moving all over the place. Sometimes they are neatly lined along the
left edge of the screen, other times they are jumbled all over the screen,
and today she could not even find her icons: It turned out they were all
placed on the TV!

I do not know if it is related, but I have also noted one other thing: When
I set the TV to be used as a secondary display, I cannot set it to
resolutions below 800x600 (any way to override this, BTW?). But when I
shutdown and reboot, the TV display suddenly has a resolution of 640x480.

Does anybody know what I should do to keep my girls icons in place?

 

[Sharon F]

I am running XP Pro. I have set up two user accounts: One for myself, and
one for my girlfriend. I have a Radeon-based video card with VGA, DVI and TV
outlets. A monitor is hooked to the VGA and a TV is hooked to the TV-out.

Depending on what the computer is used for, I mainly switch between three
different setups: 1) Monitor as primary display, TV as clone. 2) TV as
primary display, monitor as clone. 3) Monitor as primary display, with
desktop extended to the TV.

Changing between these setups are usually done from my user account. On both
accounts the desktop icons are set up to be sorted automatically by name. My
icons stay in place, but my girlfriend has complained that her desktop icons
keep moving all over the place. Sometimes they are neatly lined along the
left edge of the screen, other times they are jumbled all over the screen,
and today she could not even find her icons: It turned out they were all
placed on the TV!

I do not know if it is related, but I have also noted one other thing: When
I set the TV to be used as a secondary display, I cannot set it to
resolutions below 800x600 (any way to override this, BTW?). But when I
shutdown and reboot, the TV display suddenly has a resolution of 640x480.

Does anybody know what I should do to keep my girls icons in place?

Duct tape or Arrange Icons> AutoArrange might help.

AutoArrange will usually realign all icons to the left on the primary
monitor. Most folks turn this off as it can be annoying but your girlfriend
may like the results. If it doesn't work out, you could always turn it off
again.

Or perhaps try one of those third party programs that save desktop settings
so that the icons don't go wandering?

You might look into the ATI software possibilities too. Depending on what
you have installed, you might find a place where you can create and save
user customized desktops.

I have the Catalyst Control Center installed at the moment and am finding
only "Profiles" that save display settings - not desktops. However, the
last time that I ran the regular ATI Control Center, the option for
managing more personalized desktops was still there. Don't know how well
this arranges icons but if you already have it installed, it's worth a try.

As far as the resolution for the TV goes: When you restart or during the
early stages of boot up, the system's base video is working and not the ATI
drivers. You might get around this by going in Display Properties>
Advanced> Adapter and checking the box to show all modes but I strongly
advise caution making this change as the resulting list will include
settings not supported by the current hardware.

 

[André Gulliksen]

Duct tape

I was considering it. Or a stapler gun p

or Arrange Icons> AutoArrange might help.

AutoArrange is on for both profiles. That's what I meant by "automatically".

I have the Catalyst Control Center installed at the moment and am
finding only "Profiles" that save display settings - not desktops.

Me to. I have two such profiles: One for monitor+TV as primary/clone, and
vice versa. When extending my desktop to the TV I have to turn this on
manually.

No options for desktop icons, though.

As far as the resolution for the TV goes: When you restart or during
the early stages of boot up, the system's base video is working and
not the ATI drivers. You might get around this by going in Display
Properties> Advanced> Adapter and checking the box to show all modes
but I strongly advise caution making this change as the resulting
list will include settings not supported by the current hardware.

Well, this seems to be a limitation of XP, not the video
card/drivers/whatever. I used to have Windows 2000, and I could select
640x480 without problems. It seems that XP by design does not want 640x480
resolutions. When using a monitor that does not handle resolutions above
640x480 XP drops down to 640x480, and gives you an "error" message that the
resolution is too low. If your equipment handles resolutions above 640x480
then the Display dialogue in XP does not offer the option of selecting
640x480. The only possibility I have seen so far is using third party
software, such as MultiRes. But if there is a registry-hack or anything that
allows me to select 640x480 in the standard XP Display dialogue, then I
would like to know about it.