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Whenever my laptop sleeps, it gathers all my windows onto the primary monitor. How can I prevent this behavior?

I setup my workspace in a very specific way, and it's super frustrating to have all the windows gather unnecessarily every time I walk away for a break. (and no, I'm not going to disable sleep - not an option here.)

Windows 8.1
Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro

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  • How do you trigger the sleep? Changing the way to start sleeping might help. E.g. closing lid → pushing sleep button
    – Scott Rhee
    May 7, 2014 at 22:59
  • Right now I just walk away from the machine. Sleeps after x amount of time. May 7, 2014 at 23:35
  • I would try, changing the display driver and changing monitor driver on the secondary to a non-PnP one. Perhaps the system mis-detected that your 2nd monitor was detached when going sleepy so changing the display driver or using "non-PnP" monitor driver might help. Or, there might be an option on your display driver config page to "force to keep 2nd monitor", "turn off monitor auto-detection" or something like that.
    – Scott Rhee
    May 27, 2014 at 22:01
  • Hi @Chase -- I submitted a list of troubleshooting steps and potential solutions, based on a quite a bit of research I did for you. Do you mind, please, checking to see if any of these provides a satisfying answer to your problem? Sep 22, 2014 at 2:41
  • Hello @MyPetOcean I've upvoted your answer, but I cannot test to see. I've given up trying, and since gotten a Lenovo USB3 Dock that does my display stuff. Now I no longer have the issue that I had before due to the way the dock handles everything. Sep 22, 2014 at 4:16

2 Answers 2

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This old forum thread may be helpful.

Thomas51: After further research I found the root cause of the dual monitor problem. There is a task in the task scheduler called TMM (Microsoft Transient Multi-Monitor Manager). I disabled this task, and all seems to work fine now.

Josh: Disabling TMM worked for me too, thanks a million! [...] But when TMM was off, it wouldn't detect if I had one plugged in when I logged in or came out of sleep [...]

_Tux_: I found this problem to be caused by a registry setting created by the nvidia drivers I installed. It created a DWORD registry value in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\TMM called UseIViewHelper and set it to 1. I renamed this key to "UseIViewHelper old", rebooted and the problem is now gone. When I login, the external monitor resolution stays as it should and if I unplug it, Vista detects this and switches the laptop monitor back to be the main desktop.

And from another forum thread:

ATI has a control panel that allows you to change the monitor configuration. It appears that Windows and ATI were fighting over control, and ATI was winning. So, stop changing the dual monitor settings in Windows -- starting changing them in ATI, and my problems went away.

Also, these solutions worked for other people (from the first forum thread I linked):

Dannyboy888: Try switching the primary monitor to secondary and the secondary monitor to primary (or vice versa). It worked for me on a Toshiba Satellite running on Vista 64 bit. In Vista you can go to display setting --> advanced setting --> Intel® Graphic Media accelerator driver for Mobile --> graphic properties --> then, reverse the settings under display selection (primary to secondary or secondary to primary, in other words make display 1 into 2, 2 into 1 or vice versa).

Sparkle: The layout problem was annoying me too, my external monitor kept defualting to the right. I have a DELL FP1905 Monitor and noticed that the monitor driver was defaulting to the Generic PnP driver, then realized I never installed the driver for this monitor. Once I installed the Dell driver for the FP1905 display (including restart, and updating the monitor layout settings once more) it seems to work flawlessly now. Vista must save layout settings per driver type and only resets the settings associated with the generic driver.

So, here is what I would recommend:

  1. Check your monitors' manufacturers' websites for the latest display drivers -- and while you are at it, check that your chipset and graphics drivers are up-to-date.

  2. Check if your graphics adapter management software (e.g., ATI or nVidia) may be conflicting with your Windows configuration and, per the recommendation above, switch to using solely the proprietary software made for your graphics card.

  3. Try manually editing the registry value for TMM, as per the recommendation made by _Tux_.

  4. Try switching the primary monitor.

  5. Try the troubleshooting step I recommended in my previous answer.

  6. Finally, if none of this leads to a resolution to your issue, try a third-party window management software, such as Ignytion Windows Layout Manager (recommended by dennis on a related Super User post) or Actual Window Manager (recommended by coldblackice in a forum thread as resolving his issue) to restore your windows' positions.

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Try these two settings:

  1. Open Power Options.
  2. Next to the selected power plan, click Change plan settings.
  3. Then click Change advanced power settings.
  4. Expand the Intel(R) Graphics Settings tree fully, and set Plugged in: to Maximum Performance.
  5. Expand the Display tree, then Turn off display after, and set Plugged in (Minutes): to 0.
  6. Click OK, then Save changes.
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  • Terrible solution. I don't want to disable sleep/hibernate. In fact I WANT sleep/hibernate. What I don't want in all windows gathering on the primary screen after waking up. Aug 11, 2014 at 14:49
  • My solution is not disabling Sleep or Hibernate. I understood your question. My solution should prevent the display from turning off before your computer goes to sleep! Sleep may not precisely be the cause of your trouble; so, disabling the display from automatically turning off is a troubleshooting step and a possible solution. It could be that your computer ceases to recognize the other monitor(s) when the display turns off. Please, give it a try and report your finding. Aug 13, 2014 at 9:35
  • Hi @Chase, I submitted a second far-more-detailed answer several days ago, which I spent quite a bit of time on. Have you had the opportunity to followup? Aug 25, 2014 at 8:20

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