I am having a weird issue with a machine where sometimes when a window is initialized, it will shoot off screen and out of sight. I am unable to click on it to drag it back to sight.
Are there any programs or fixes for this in Windows XP?
I know Windows and other programs like to save window locations after they close so when you reopen them they are in the spot where they were closed and I cannot see any of these windows that were closed off screen.
Highlight in in the task bar, hit ALT+SPACE then M. That will get it ready to move. Then use your arrow keys to move it and hit Enter when finished.
Try holding the Shift key while closing. That often saves the location.
I have a geeky solution :-) Script in Python that goes through all off-screen windows and offers moving them to the left upper corner:
import winxpgui, sys, win32con
screen_width = 1920
screen_height = 1200
def WindowsListEnum(hwnd, data):
pos = winxpgui.GetWindowRect(hwnd)
left, top = 0, 0
if pos[0] < 0 or pos[0] > screen_width:
left = 10
if pos[1] < 0 or pos[1] > screen_height:
top = 10
if left or top:
print winxpgui.GetWindowText(hwnd), ',', pos, '->', (top, left, pos[2], pos[3])
if sys.stdin.read(1) == 'y':
winxpgui.SetWindowPos(hwnd, win32con.HWND_NOTOPMOST, left, top, pos[2]-pos[0], pos[3]-pos[1], win32con.SWP_SHOWWINDOW)
print "press 'y' to move the window, anything else to continue\n"
winxpgui.EnumWindows(WindowsListEnum, None)
You can also right-click on the taskbar and choose one of the window-arranging menu choices. In Windows 7, they are:
Previous versions used slightly different terms, but did the same thing. Some versions will only arrange non-minimized windows/applications, if I recall correctly.
Set focus to the window, by clicking in the task bar or ALT+TAB.
ALT+SPACE to bring up the system menu.
M to select Move.
Tap an arrow key once to start moving the window.
Move your mouse.
The window will quickly pop in to view.
This is faster than using the arrows to move the window the whole way, especially if it is way off screen.
One extra tip: after you have started moving it with the keyboard (one pixel), finish by just moving the mouse. That is a lot faster.
@qrobers as noted by StevenV
Right click on the taskbar window button and tell it to
This is by far the easiest. I use it in a multiple monitor set on my laptop when power goes out and I loose the second monitor. I can pull all the windows onto my main monitor (laptop). Very easy, quick.
One more option which allows to not affect other window positions and to avoid mouse-dragging: run an additional instance of the same application (in case currently there is only one), so that the following menu is available when you press Shift + right mouse click:
Some applications don't respond to activating the window plus using alt+space+m, such as FSCapture (faststone screen capture). WindowSpace (free trial) worked to move it back onto the screen.
A technique that often works is this:
This normally causes the window parameters to fit onto the current screen. Having only two active windows keeps most window positions unchanged.
There is (or was) an extremely good program called Shove-It for Windows. Used to be at www.phord.com but it's been taken down now. Basically just run it and it will automatically detect any windows that have opened with their contents even partially off-screen, and either "shove" them back into the viewing portal area or else resize them if necessary, all automatically. I managed to locate an old beta of it which is free, will share via Sugarsync. https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D290041_6932435_98576
