In the Screen Resolution window, under Change the appearance of your displays , click and drag one of the monitors to its correct location vs. the other one. The Identity numbers don't matter.
How to Swap Display Identity (Identities)
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Anonymous
Windows 7 - Display 'A' Philips primary display - Display 'B' IBM secondary display. A shows as Identity 2 and B shows as Identity 1. I want to reverse these. Reason is that the cursor currently travels from display B to A and I need it to go the other way - due to physical location of displays
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
129 additional answers
Sort by: Oldest
-
Anonymous
2013-11-20T17:27:36+00:00 This problem has been driving me mad, I have Benq 24 inch monitor and Philips 42 inch tv
and MSI GTX 560 card with 2 DVI ports and 1 mini HDMI port and the tv is alvays nr 1. no matter what and when I take the power off the TV my monitor goes blank unless I use the projector only option, this is a major problem, the last nvidia driver that worked for me was 314.22 or older.
I found a work around and that was to change the monitor from DVI to HDMI.
Now the setup is mini HDMI to HDMI on the Benq monitor( identified 1) and DVi with HDMI convertor to the Philips TV ( identified 2 ).
Iam going to get another DVI to HDMI convertor and see if that works too.
But this problem still waits to be solved by Microsoft !
-
Anonymous
2013-11-30T18:02:37+00:00 I have the same issue.
I want to point out that this NOT concerns anything you can do in display appearence (as display position, or which is the main display), because some answers go in thsi direction, but who gives those has NOT understand the problem.
It is YEARS tha people have this issue... MS FIX IT PLEASE!
-
Anonymous
2013-12-07T09:14:33+00:00 The identity numbers DO MATTER! This is causing A LOT of problems when it comes to gaming, I am very frustrated right now.
-
Anonymous
2013-12-23T23:41:07+00:00 *Bump*
My primary DVI display in Windows 7 gets forced from identity #1 to #2 after connecting/enabling a HDMI screen which steals identity #1 further forcing my second DVI output to identity #3. Now I can't get my primary display to identify as #1.
This is a huge problem as many multi-monitor applications use this identification scheme for priority purposes and resourcing, not the so-called software-forced "primary display". Why does my primary display identify as #2 when it is, indeed, clearly the primary display, being the only screen of the three that displays the BIOS POST at boot and the only display active in Windows 7 "Safe Mode", and, in "Safe Mode", as identity #1? It just makes no sense.
As such, there is a significant performance hit using an identity #2 screen as a "primary display", especially in specific 3D hardware accelerated applications, including Microsoft Silverlight.
This must be addressed. Simply arranging monitors through software orientation schemes and forcing a software "primary display" is not a solution at all. The display identity/identities must be re-configured as they truly are in hardware.