Multiple Monitors: How can I change the direction I can drag windows onto the 2nd monitor?

Question

My office is set up so 2nd monitor is on the left of my desktop - can't imagine why I couldn't drag windows to the left instead of the right - but it only works to the right.  My brain just can't seem to "get" dragging to the right to see something on my left side - any way to change this setting?

Answer 1

Control panel, Display - grab the image of the second screen & drag it to whichever relative loation is most appropriate.

Or are you saying that you have tried this & cannot get it to work?  If so, what exactly does / does not happen when you grab & drag the image of the second screen?

Answer 2

My office is set up so 2nd monitor is on the left of my desktop - can't imagine why I couldn't drag windows to the left instead of the right - but it only works to the right.  My brain just can't seem to "get" dragging to the right to see something on my left side - any way to change this setting?

Its so simple :

Just open Screen Resolution window from Control Panel from where you set multiple monitors.

(Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution)

You would see two monitors with numbering... Just swap drag them left/right wherever you want.

You are done!! :)

Answer 3

I had the same issue with three monitors.  Couldn't get them to allow me to swipe to the right and to the left.  Had to swipe to the left, through the second monitor, to get to the third monitor which was on the right.  Realized that while I had them properly oriented in Screen Resolution and had hit "OK", I had not hit "Apply".  Once I hit "Apply", I was able to swipe to the right, and to the left.

Answer 4

1 It sounds as though your system is not behaving in the expected way then as moving the second monitor position to the left-hand side is a standard function for graphics cards that support multi-monitors correctly.

2 If you accept the inconvenience of having the displays the wrong way around for a moment & just use them, does the second monitor behave correctly whilst set as an extended desktop?  Is this extended desktop setting labelled as such correctly in the Control panel, Display, Change display settings page?  That would certainly imply that the display driver can support extended desktop configuration.

3 The other threads on this topic [I searched for extended display left] suggest checking the display driver in Control panel, Device manager, Displays.  That sounds fair enough but I only found one example of this being successful.  Please try this to see if it solves the problem.  You could try letting Windows update the driver but you will probably be better off checking the maker's support site so you are confident that you really do have the latest driver.

4 More importantly, I found one thread that said [in relation to ATI displays] that the positional setting was not possible in Windows but had to be set in the display card's settings.  So, for a video card that has its own control panel applet, you have to go there.  For a video card that has no control panel applet, you go to

Control panel, Display, Change display settings, Advanced, {the big tab with the video card / driver maker's name on it}, Graphics options [or similar button name]

 and see how to arrange the displays in their settings.  One of these threads said that Windows would be able to arrange the displays later on but it had to be done in the display card's settings the first time [this is surprising but I thought I should repeat it just in case it is correct].  Could you try setting the displays up in the display card's settings to see if that works?  If there is no facility for setting this in the display driver's settings then I'd guess that the display driver does not support the function [see para 1 above] - you should therefore check with the PC / display card maker's support side for clarification.

5 I cannot respond to your last post itself because I cannot understand what you mean [it's so hard to describe visual behaviour in words alone, I know].  The relative sizes of the screen icons in that settings  page will be set by the display resolutions chosen so that, I think, is not significant.  But I am concerned that I have completely misunderstood what you've written as I cannot imagine what you then mean by the bit you've put in brackets.

Answer 5

It resizes the window to half the screen (shortcut for showing screens side by side on the same screen).  It allows me to drag the window off the screen to the right side - but not the left.