# My start menu keeps appearing on the secondary monitor?



## audiobahn1000

The computer I have is in my sig.  I often switch from extended desk top mode to clone mode (both monitors display the same image).  I do this because my games don’t work in extended desktop mode.  Well sometimes when I turn off my computer I turn it back on to find the start bar and my icons moved to the second monitor and the only way to get to the first monitor is to mouse to the left of the left monitor and the mouse appears on the left of the right monitor.  Well I go into display properties and change the display settings so that I can mouse from the left of the left monitor right onto the right monitor in the right direction.  Well the start bar still stays on the right monitor and the only way to get it back to the left monitor is to switch the DVI cables.  I even went into the display properties tab and choose “use this monitor as my default monitor” for monitor one (the left one) and the start menu is still on the right.

So my two questions are:

1. Why does the monitors keep switching without me commanding them to switch?
2. How do I fix this and stop it from happening again.


And also is there a way I can have the computer automatically switch to clone mode when I open a specific game so I don’t have to always switch it myself?


----------



## heyman421

my computer does this as well

you need to go into your computers bios, and change the primary display adapter to whichever you use your primary monitor on.

for instance, i have a pci card for my secondary monitors, and use a pci express card for my primary monitor.

In my asus bios, the pci card was set to the primary display, and every time i'd reboot, windows would automatically assign my left secondary monitor as the primary monitor.

it took me a while to figure this out.


----------



## heyman421

a side note, tho, is that i have no idea how to keep this from happening if BOTH of your video cards are pci express.....

I guess just figure out which monitor it automatically assigns primary display to, and just hook up your primary monitor to that card.......  easy fix


----------



## audiobahn1000

I have one PCI-E card with dual DVI outputs that I use.  One DVI output for one monitor and one for the other monitor.


----------



## sniperchang

audiobahn1000 said:


> The computer I have is in my sig.  I often switch from extended desk [...]  still on the right.
> 
> So my two questions are:
> 
> 1. Why does the monitors keep switching without me commanding them to switch?
> 2. How do I fix this and stop it from happening again.



So your saying your monitors switch places and your task bar is on the wrong side?

Ah Simple, no need to switch cables! If you go right click on desktop, and click properties, and go to the settings tab, you can move the Monitor 1 box to the right of monitor 2 box. And also, if you right click on the Task bar, and unselect "Lock Taskbar" you can move it to your other monitor (don't forget to lock it again to make sure you dont accidently move it again.

Notice that going clone mode will certainly move your Icons to one screen. Now to solve your Icon problem, here is a passage of Koroush Ghazi's Tweaking Companion: 


			
				Koroush Ghazi said:
			
		

> SAVE DESKTOP ICON POSITIONS
> This tweak is a personal favorite of mine. Basically it allows you to save the current positions of your
> desktop icons so that if the icons are rearranged or moved you can restore them back to these original
> positions at any time. To give you this added functionality in XP, do the following:
> 1. Download the file Layout.zip (mirror: here) and extract the contents to an empty directory.
> 2. Copy the file Layout.dll to your \Windows\System32 directory.
> 3. Double‐click on the Layout.reg file to automatically make the appropriate changes to your Registry.
> 4. Go to your Desktop and arrange all your icons as you would like them to be saved.
> 5. Once done, right‐click on the Recycle Bin and select the new ʹSave Desktop Icon Layoutʹ option. The
> positions of all the icons are now saved. You can move the icons around freely and whenever you want
> them restored to their original saved positions, right‐click on Recycle Bin again and select ʹRestore
> Desktop Icon Layoutʹ.
> This tweak is particularly handy if youʹre installing new graphics card drivers for example and your
> Desktop icons get messed up, or you change resolutions and they get bumped around, or if you accidentally
> move an icon while trying to double click on it.





audiobahn1000 said:


> And also is there a way I can have the computer automatically switch to clone mode when I open a specific game so I don’t have to always switch it myself?



Now ever heard of Ultramon? Probably the best, but simple program you can get for a Dual-Display system. This program can make an extra taskbar for your second monitor, it can set different or spanned screensavers and desktop images. But more importanly in your situation, you can set it to automaticly disable a monitor when you start up a program or game, and it turns back on when you exit. http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ It cost money on that site, but you can easily get it free elseweres...

EDIT: Wikipedia Site with a list of features that Ultramon has.


----------



## audiobahn1000

sniperchang said:


> So your saying your monitors switch places and your task bar is on the wrong side?
> 
> Ah Simple, no need to switch cables! If you go right click on desktop, and click properties, and go to the settings tab, you can move the Monitor 1 box to the right of monitor 2 box. And also, if you right click on the Task bar, and unselect "Lock Taskbar" you can move it to your other monitor (don't forget to lock it again to make sure you dont accidently move it again.
> 
> Notice that going clone mode will certainly move your Icons to one screen. Now to solve your Icon problem, here is a passage of Koroush Ghazi's Tweaking Companion:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now ever heard of Ultramon? Probably the best, but simple program you can get for a Dual-Display system. This program can make an extra taskbar for your second monitor, it can set different or spanned screensavers and desktop images. But more importanly in your situation, you can set it to automaticly disable a monitor when you start up a program or game, and it turns back on when you exit. http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ It cost money on that site, but you can easily get it free elseweres...
> 
> EDIT: Wikipedia Site with a list of features that Ultramon has.


Thats not good enough.  Switching the monitors placement in the display tab only changes how your mouse moves from one monotor to the other.  It has no effect on what monitor the start bar is on.  I have messed with it many times.  The start bar is on the monitor selected as the primary monitor it seems.

Also it seems the monitors position changes by itself.  Sometimes the left monitor is identified as monitor 2 and some times its identified as monitor one.  I dont know why the hell it changes by itself.


----------



## sniperchang

audiobahn1000 said:


> Thats not good enough.  Switching the monitors placement in the display tab only changes how your mouse moves from one monotor to the other.  It has no effect on what monitor the start bar is on.  I have messed with it many times.  The start bar is on the monitor selected as the primary monitor it seems.



Well did you try what I said after? 


			
				Sniperchang said:
			
		

> And also, if you right click on the Task bar, and unselect "Lock Taskbar" you can move it to your other monitor (don't forget to lock it again to make sure you dont accidently move it again.





audiobahn1000 said:


> Also it seems the monitors position changes by itself.  Sometimes the left monitor is identified as monitor 2 and some times its identified as monitor one.  I dont know why the hell it changes by itself.



That's weird, prolly that's what causing most of the strange behavior, did you try using that Ultramon program? Mabe it will help keeping your monitors correctly identified.

EDIT: Incase you forgot something, check for driver updates to your video card, and updates elsewheres like windows or direct X...


----------



## audiobahn1000

Drivers are updated.  Windows is on auto update.  I got some puctures for you:


Whenever I play a game I need to go into clone mode so both monitors display the same image.  When I exit out of the game I go back into extended desktop mode.  Well what usually happens is when I go into clone mode half the icons move over to the opposite side of the monitor.  Then when I exit clone mode back into extended desktop mode, the start menu is on the wrong monitor and I cant mouse over to the monitor from the correct side of the monitor.  I have to go to the incorrect side of the monitor to mouse over to the other monitor.  Here is a print screen of what I do step by step:

My monitor in extended desktop mode:






Then I go into clone mode and the icons move to the other side of the monitor:






This is what the display properties menu looks like at the moment:






At this moment I choose the default monitor to be the primary monitor ( the secondary monitor for some reason seems to become the default monitor when I go into clone mode)






Here I choose to make the default monitor the primary monitor and I choose the secondary monitor to be the extended desktop monitor.  At this point the video card always switches the monitors around.  Monitor number one becomes two and two becomes one.  Also the mouse does not mouse over correctly.  The arrows indicate the direction I need to move the mouse to get over to the other monitor.







Then I switch the monitors around on the little “1” and “2” blue boxes that indicate the monitors position in the display properties menu.






Then I move the icons and secondary taskbar where it belongs and everything is back to normal again.







So how do I skip doing all this bull ship?  The monitors should go into clone mode without moving the icons around and they got back into extended desktop mode without screwing up the monitors position and task bar.



And I have UltraMon.  UltraMon does not appear to have any options that will have any effect on my problem.  I  None of the options have any effect on going from extended desktop mode to clone mode and back from what I can find.  It appears to have a option to alow me to go into clone mode (they call it mirror mode) but I already have that option through the ATI CCC.


----------



## audiobahn1000

> Now ever heard of Ultramon? Probably the best, but simple program you can get for a Dual-Display system. This program can make an extra taskbar for your second monitor, it can set different or spanned screensavers and desktop images. But more importanly in your situation, you can set it to automaticly disable a monitor when you start up a program or game, and it turns back on when you exit. http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ It cost money on that site, but you can easily get it free elseweres...
> 
> EDIT: Wikipedia Site with a list of features that Ultramon has.




I have UltraMon.  Its not working correctly with the game I am trying to play.  I made a shortcut with the program so that when I go into the game it automatically mirrors the monitors, then returns the monitors to the extended desktop state when I exit the game.  Well its not working correctly.  When I enter into the game it does not mirror the monitors.  It doesn’t do anything.  The same thing happens to the second monitor as what happens when I just enter into the game normal with no UltraMon shortcuts attacked.  The second monitor turns blue and black in the center with a highly distorted image of the desktop.  However when I use the clone mode in that ATI CCC, it mirrors the monitors correctly but I have the problem I listed above with the start bar going to the wrong monitor and what not.


----------



## sniperchang

So the way I see it, is that going Clone mode is what changes things around. So to solve this you will need to play game without having to go clone mode. 

SO you said that extented desktop mode doesnt work with games? Normally when you start a game in extended desktop mode (not span mode) the game opens full screen on the monitor designated as the primary one. Can you tell me what happens when you try to play game without going clone mode first?


----------

