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This solution I owe to my brother – who made me figure this one out for him. My brother is one of you Laptop users that, when home (or the office), hooks up his computer to an external monitor, extending his desktop. This works fine – unless you forget to move every application window back to your main desktop before disconnecting the extra monitor. Then what do you do ?

If you’re still at home (or the office) then it’s no “biggy”, but if you’re on the road somewhere, suddenly realize that your PowerPoint presentation is showing on the “other” monitor… What then ?

Don’t worry – Read on

Any off-screen windows will reveal their presence in the taskbar, so it’s actually quite simple to move it back, using The Move function. There are two ways to solve this:

Method One:

  1. Press Windows Key + M (minimize all windows.)
  2. Use Alt+Tab until you have the missing window active, and release the keys.
  3. Press Alt, then Spacebar, then m.
  4. Depending on which side of the monitor you have extended your desktop, use the arrow-keys (up,down,left,right) to maneuver the window back in place.

Method Two:

  1. Press Windows Key + M (minimize all windows.)
  2. Use Alt+Tab until you have the missing window active, and release the keys.
  3. Right-Click on the taskbar and choose Move from the Context menu. Now you should see that your mouse pointer changes into a crossarrow. There is of course nothing to drag or move on your screen, so:
  4. Depending on which side of the monitor you have extended your desktop, use the arrow-keys (up,down,left,right) to maneuver the window back in place.

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

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Comments

6 thoughts on “Get Back Lost Off-Screen Windows [How To]”

  1. Accura says:

    Windows 7 has a cool new feature that should help. Click the icon in the taskbar to ensure that the program has focus. Then hold down the Windows key and press the right-arrow a few times. That should move the window across your screens and eventually bring it back onto the screen that is still active.
    Dave Bishop
    Senior Technical Writer
    Windows Server Networking User Assistance

    —-Thanks to DAVE Bishop

    1. matt says:

      wow, this one was cool! thanx :)

    2. Felix says:

      AWESOME, thank you very much for posting this!The other methods didn’t work :(  (tough I am gratefull they were supplied, I’m sure it worked for most users).
      THX DAVE Bishop!!

    3. Johnny says:

      Did not work for winamp after I had to change from eyefinity(3 screens) to to dual Nvidia setup, but thanks for the tip. Works as posted for everything else :)

    4. Deb says:

      THANK YOU!!!! Nothing else would work for me.

  2. ccarmona1981 says:

    This is another way to solve this problem with a little app. This one moves all windows to the primary display.

    More info: http://movewindows.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-have-dual-monitor-setup.html

Comments are closed.


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