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Note:

I've read several solutions to this problem, all of which seem to involve looking for a key in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration, which is prefixed with SIMULATED_. I have no such key in there. I only have two keys: One that represents two of my 3 monitors, and another that represents all three.

I tried deleting everything in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration and in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Connectivity and rebooted. This reset my monitor settings, and I had to re-arrange the desktops accordingly... but the problem still comes up now and again.

Edit 1:

I've noticed just now that when I woke the monitors, my center monitor was set to a resolution of 1920x1080 while the side monitors were 2560x1440. So somehow, the resolution is getting changed at random, and (most of the time) it gets reverted back, thus causing the shift in windows.

A few other times, I've noticed that all my desktop icons have been moved to another screen (I keep them in the center) despite the center screen being the "primary" in Windows. So here, it seems, two monitors just randomly swapped places in settings.

Here's a screenshot of my relevant registry settings. I've selected one of the registry keys, but the other two below are the exact same, it seems.

enter image description here


I have three ASUS PB278Q monitors (27 inch 2560x1440) and I've been having problems ever since I upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 last year. I often pin two specific windows next to eachother on one monitor, and when I come back to my computer after a long period of time, I find that sometimes (but not all the time) the windows are not positioned correctly anymore. They are on the same monitor, but it's as if the resolution changed overnight and now the windows are not where they were.

On one of my other monitors, I find that sometimes (but again, not always) the windows completely move to my center monitor.

My left-most monitor is connected via Dual Link DVI, while the middle (primary) and right monitors are connected via DisplayPort.

DDC/CI is enabled for all three monitors.

I have a NVidia GTX 960 with fairly recent (if not newest) drivers.

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  • 3
    I've had this sometime. Are they different models? I'm convinced this happens cause the monitors take different times to start up after sleep
    – Journeyman Geek
    Mar 8, 2017 at 1:11
  • 2
    The problem might be because of using different types of ports. Are you having this problem mostly with DP? The power saving of DP disconnects the monitor, Windows then "re-discovering" it on wake-up. Have a look at these answers of mine: answer1 and answer2. Try also in Control Panel / Power Options / Change Plan Settings / Change Advanced / Power Settings / USB Settings, to disable USB Selective suspend setting. Ensure you have the latest Nvidia with GeForce Experience installed (registration required).
    – harrymc
    Mar 8, 2017 at 8:54

2 Answers 2

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According to your description, it seems that your problem is mostly with the DisplayPort ports. DisplayPort ports under Windows are implemented differently than VGA and DVI ports, in that when they enter the sleep state Windows treats them as if they were removed, even displacing their displayed windows to other monitors. When the monitor wakes up, Windows treats it as a new device being discovered. This behavior might be the cause of your problems.

One solution might be to disable the monitor from sleeping:

  • Open Control Panel / Power Options
  • For your power plan click on Change plan settings
  • Change the Turn off display drop-down box to Never
  • Click on Save changes

I have also seen reports that it helps to unset USB Selective suspend under Control Panel / Power Options / Change Plan Settings / Change Advanced / Power Settings / USB Settings. These reports are suspect, since the monitor is not a USB device, but this might be worth trying.

Another solution which will prevent Windows from verifying the continued presence of the DisplayPort monitors and so to not detect that they are in sleep, is to keep the EDID properties of the DisplayPort monitors.

For this solution see these answers of mine :

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  • I used to have a Radeon R9 290 and this problem never arose. At that time, I was using the same combination of ports: One DVI and two DP. At that time, I was able to leave windows open on any screen, and come back any amount of time later and the windows would still be exactly where I left them. There would be no arbitrary resizing of my screen area
    – Mirrana
    Mar 10, 2017 at 13:07
  • 1
    Interesting. I see that my linked answers all pertained to NVIDIA GeForce GTX, as is yours. So the problem might actually be between NVIDIA and Windows. However, the R9 has two dual-link DVI ports, one HDMI, but only one DisplayPort, so the problem might have been less noticeable.
    – harrymc
    Mar 10, 2017 at 17:17
  • You could put your primary monitor on DVI - this should minimize the problem.
    – harrymc
    Mar 11, 2017 at 8:16
4

Honestly, all i can say is what worked for me.

To me it looks like you are looking for a solution and this is a good real solution. You really don't have to mess around in the registry to get what you want to achieve.

This is the tool: http://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.net

and here is the screenshot of the tool of my current settings. You can see i have multiple resolutions set up and lots of monitors. Nothing ever changes for me, i just set it up once and no problems again.

enter image description here

Recently i even disabled auto start with Windows and the problem didnt return. To me this feels like the tool somehow makes those reg changes that you are looking for.

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  • 1
    I just checked out the tool, and it doesn't seem to provide any mechanism to change anything other than the primary monitor or the brightness. What is this supposed to accomplish?
    – Mirrana
    Apr 18, 2017 at 22:53
  • @agent154 it allows for setting of primary monitors and it remembers this information. Jan 10, 2020 at 13:44
  • 3
    @DeerSpotter but you don't tell how this tool allows us to prevent a secondary monitor from losing window positions.
    – Steve06
    Oct 14, 2020 at 19:18

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