Windows 7 Dual Monitors - Turning off a monitor causes desktop to rearrange resulting in significant amounts of lost productivity.

Anonymous

I have 2 monitors connected to a nVidia FX 580 card running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. One monitor is connected via DVI and the other via DP (Display Port).

If I turn off the DP monitor, I hear the windows sound indicating hardware was "removed". When I turn the monitor back on, I hear the new hardware sound, windows re-detects the monitor as if I just installed it, and my entire desktop icon layout and any windows I had open are then all rearranged and takes a significant amount of time re-organizing to get back to where I was.

I leave my PC on 24hrs a day for several reasons - and for years have always just turned my monitors off when not in use.

I need to be able to turn off my monitors without windows deciding that I have "removed" a monitor.

I work for a medical imaging software company where we provide complete hardware and software solutions for use in Radiology departments in hospitals. These systems typically have 3 or 4 monitors connected, all via DP these days. Because of the possibility of the users desktop getting messed up if they happen to turn off a monitor, we are unable to install systems with Windows 7.

While many may see this as nothing more then a inconvenience, this is a show-stopper as far as we are concerned. As of yet I have not found a workable solution to this issue.

So here's the question: How do we disable this new behavior in Windows 7 and allow it to understand that the monitor hasn't gone away and that the desktop should not be rearranged simply because the monitor was turned off?

Thank you.

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Anonymous

I've written a little utility to address this issue. It's still very thrown together, but opensource, so you can compile from sources if you've got any security concerns.

Hope it works out for you!

http://www.ninjacrab.com/persistent-windows/

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68 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-01-11T21:08:46+00:00

try disabling pnp in the bios
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Anonymous

2010-08-04T20:24:33+00:00

Actually, this really is a graphics card and/or graphics driver issue. On one of my Windows 7 x64 machines, I was running an ATI Radeon X1600 card (with latest drivers at the time) and I experienced the same symptoms. I swapped the graphics card out with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 (plus the latest drivers) and the problem went away. I was then able to gleefully power on/off any monitor of my choosing without affecting the desktop and monitor configuration.

So, try different (newer or older) drivers, and if that doesn't work, try a different video card. It's not like there's some secret Windows setting that disables monitor detection...or is there? :P
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Anonymous

2010-07-28T22:27:25+00:00

This isn't answering the question. The poster wants Windows to leave his desktop and monitor configuration alone even though he powers off a connected monitor. This makes perfect sense, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the graphics drivers, etc.

Said another way, he (and others) want the display setup to persist until they explicitly change it. It should not respond in any automatic way to connects and disconnects of monitors.
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Anonymous

2010-05-11T16:53:49+00:00

I have the same problem, I want my primary monitor to be the right hand monitor and when I leave my computer for a bit the screen saver kicks in and it locks, I log back in and it thinks the screen extended to the left is now extended to the right, needless to say it is annoying to have to go and readjust where the screen is located every time I log back into my computer.
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