How to change monitor assignment in a dual monitor environment

I did find a resolution to this issue after going through various suggestions in this post and experimenting with some suggestions by fiddling around on my own.

Here is what I did:

1. I have two 1080p monitors.

Primary one connected directly via hdmi cable/

Secondary one also with a hdmi cable (with a dvi to hdmi adapter on the graphic card and hdmi cable plugged into my secondary display).  I did this setup for the sake of getting a native hd resolution. 

I  chose my primary display as the 'main display' in the options. 

As usual the problem of wrong display numbering. 

2. With the pc running I disconnected the hdmi cable connections on both monitors and swapped them over to each other.
3. Then I pressed the detect button and lo! the displays rearranged themselves correctly as Primary ->1  and Secondary ->2.

I can now slide my windows from the primary display on the left to the secondary display on the right, ->.

How the **** MS could not have clarified this themselves in the first instance beats me!

The monitor behavior in Windows 8.1 in baffling.  There are 3 total monitors connected to the system.  An LG tv, an Acer and a BenQ.  The LG is connected via HDMI, the others are connected via DVI; all are connected to an AMD 290X graphics card.

Every time the system goes to screen saver it moves all my windows off of the monitor marked as "main" and puts them onto my LG tv that is connected via HDMI, which shortly after turns itself off because it isn't receiving input.  If I'm lucky enough to have control panel open on the Acer monitor (where the windows don't magically move) I can disconnect the LG to get the windows back to the main monitor, only instead of moving them back to the BenQ (Monitor 2, main monitor) where the windows were originally opened, it moves the windows from the Acer (Monitor 3) to the BenQ, and the windows from the LG tv to the Acer.  Its like they are playing a game of musical chairs with my monitors.  It doesn't even make sense and there doesn't really seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, which I think is at least equally frustrating, maybe more.  It doesn't happen at the time the screen saver comes on because if I'm in front of the computer and give some input to exit it isn't an issue.  This means the only other likely time is when the tv shuts itself off... You read that correctly... it moves all my open windows on to a monitor with no power.  The LG monitor is identified as monitor "1" which shouldn't matter, but I'm sure it plays a role.  The BenQ is assigned to monitor "2" and the Acer is monitor "3".  I've been running Windows 8 for probably 4 years with the exact same setup as far as the monitors go and this has only recently become an issue despite no changes to the hardware in the last 6 months to a year.  The only thing that has changed, is this is a fresh installation of Windows.

I've scoured search results on this issue and nobody seems to have an answer.  The "Microsoft fix-it link" provided earlier in the thread resolves to a "Page Not Found" 404.  I saw another thread where a Microsoft representative referred to it as a "feature".  Moving all my open windows (which can easily number 20-30) to a monitor that isn't even powered on and isn't in plain view from my main monitors is not a feature; its an extreme annoyance.  It takes me 3-4 minutes just to drag everything back every time this happens, which is several every single day.  Tricks like the "Cascade Windows" trick to pull the windows back onto the main monitor don't work.  Closing them while they are open on the LG screen results in even more unpredictable behavior;  the next time I open the program, it might (*might*) open on the LG screen.  I'll tell you what would be a feature though: An operating system that didn't believe it was more capable of handling window placement and managing monitors than the user.

Found the resolution to this issue.

Leave the screen resolution screen up on the monitor you want listed as 1

Unplug all of your hdmi/dvi or other visual cables from the monitors or computers (whatever is easiest for you), excluding the one you want listed as display 1.

if you only have one monitor plugged in and still see a monitor listed in the display screen settings window, hit the detect button to flush it out.

From there, start connecting them as you'd like in order from 2 to #X.

Once done hit the apply button.

Previous to hitting the apply button my monitor 2 (right of my monitor 1) would require me to slide my boxes to the left of monitor 1.

I just had this issue after making a few changes

I am sure there must be a better way than this brute force method.  I think going into the registry and either clearing or re-assigning the videodevices may be the solution, and then plug in the primary monitor so it gets assigned as #1, and then plugging in the secondary monitor so it would most likely get assigned #2.  I have not tried this, so this is just my theory for now.