51

I am trying to find a way to have a button or key combination that, when pushed, would rearrange all the windows on the desktop to a pre-determined state. There are five programs that need to be arranged to fit in a certain way. I first thought of AutoHotkey, but honestly I have no idea how to approach that method.

Peter Mortensen
  • 12,326
Unfundednut
  • 7,190

8 Answers8

22

I just open sourced an app that can remember and restore window layouts. See https://github.com/adamsmith/WindowsLayoutSnapshot.

adam smith
  • 331
14

I had this same problem so I built a small application to take care of it. Free, no ads, just works. You can find it under my "Freeware" section, called "TAN Window Manager". I use it everyday.

Simply place a shortcut to the program in your startup folder so it runs at boot. Open all the programs you want to save and place them where you want. Right-click the TAN Window Manager icon that will be in your tray and click 'Save Window Locations'. In the popup check the windows you want to save and click 'Save'. Now you can use the 'Restore Window Locations' button to magically move your saved windows back to where you placed them. The program is a standalone EXE, no install routine, just place the EXE anywhere you like.

Todd

Edit: Now on GitHub https://github.com/Todd1561/TANWindowMgr

Todd
  • 141
13

DisplayFusion can create monitor profiles that memorize and recall desktop placement and resolution as well as program window placement. You might be able to take advantage of that latter feature.

Franck Dernoncourt
  • 24,246
  • 64
  • 231
  • 400
Christopher
  • 552
10

WinSize2 is a program written in AutoHotKey that can make Windows remember window position, size and more. The program gives you the ability to save the window size and location for any program or folder.

To save any window position, click on the Windows title bar to make sure the window is active and press the hotkey Ctrl+Alt+Z. A tooltip message will confirm that the position has been saved. Now if you close the window and open it again, the program window will be automatically resized and moved to the position where you saved it.

You can edit the behavior and position of any previously saved window by right-clicking on the tray icon and choosing “Special Parameters”.

enter image description here

Here you can manually enter window position coordinates and size, force the window to open maximized, minimized, full screen or hidden, make it “always on top” and even enter a delay between opening the window and resizing.

WinSize2 works on all versions of Windows right from 95 to 7.

enter image description here

Mehper C. Palavuzlar
  • 55,953
7

So far my favorite solution so far is a program by DeskSoft called "WindowManager", as found here: http://www.desksoft.com/WindowManager.htm

Takes a little bit to understand its interface, but once you do you will realize how much flexibility it has with how simplistic the task is. You choose how it finds the types of windows you want to arrange (name, process name, etc) then it will try to arrange it for you, and you can use a hotkey if the window changes after it is launched, for example.

I really wish this was an optional Windows feature, being that the OS is called Windows after all, but I digress. It seems they tried to use the snap feature to do this sort of thing, but this program is much more reliable and flexible in my experience.

Mark
  • 81
4

As @AdamSmith, but from command line, I have designed a program to save and restore the windows, too.

Here it is, on another thread, if you need it (.exe files and .ahk source code).

Sopalajo de Arrierez
  • 6,851
3

I tested some software recommended in this thread on Amazon Workspaces (on Win 10) run on Macbook Pro Air M1 with connected 2 extended monitors (4K and 1080p):

  1. TAN Window Manager - it can restore window position, but CANNOT handle restoring window's initial resolution
  2. WindowLayoutSnapshot - same as #1
  3. WindowManager - best choice so far - it restores both window's position and resolution
Taz
  • 151
2

Download winLayout.exe

To save current window positions on multiple monitors:

winLayout save

To restore window positions:

winLayout restore

It's no frills, just a single .exe file. To make it easy to run, create a task bar short cut for it.

Disclaimer: I am the author.

Phillip Ngan
  • 1,350