How do I force prompts to display on my primary monitor in Windows?

Question

Every time there's a prompt of some kind, or a dialog box, it's displayed on my secondary monitor. Here's an example.

1. Win+R (Run prompt displays on secondary)
2. notepad and Enter (Notepad.exe displays on primary)
3. Ctrl+S (Save as dialog displays on secondary)

Why is it behaving like this, and is there a way to force all new prompts, dialog boxes, program windows, etc. to display on my primary monitor?

Honestly, I thought that's what the option "make this my main display" was for?!?...

Would it not be more intelligent if the program windows were displayed on the secondary monitor? In the example above, have the Run prompt and Save as dialog displayed on primary, and then pop that Notepad.exe window on the secondary monitor?

What controls this anyway? I know that Windows can remember the last location on the monitor where you had a certain program window, and then when you open that same window again, it would be displayed in same location. So I tried to open the Run prompt, move it over to my primary monitor, open a notepad from it, close everything down, and open the Run prompt again. It displayed on the secondary monitor again........

Answer 1

Try restoring the window, to it's normal size, then move it to the primary monitor. Then x out (shut down). Now Windows should remember where it last was. Then if you re-open it, then you can choose to maximize it and shut down again. Then it will re-open on the primary in a maximized window.

This worked for me when I noticed Adobe kept opening on my secondary monitor and I started looking for solutions online.

Answer 2

Yup, the "make this my main display" in Windows can't move prompts and dialog boxes over to the monitor you select. It is only able to move the taskbar and program windows over to that monitor. To see all program windows on that monitor, you might need to close the program windows first, then reopen them.

So here's what I did:

• Lifted my "primary" (i.e. "2", i.e. VGA) monitor and put it on the left.
• Lifted my "secondary" (i.e. "1", i.e. DVI) monitor and put it on the right.
• In Screen Resolution (Control Panel), selected "1" and ticked "make this my main display".

So now, both program windows and prompts and dialogs display on the monitor in front of me.

1. Win+R (Run prompt displays on primary (DVI))
2. notepad and Enter (Notepad.exe displays on primary (DVI))
3. Ctrl+S (Save as dialog displays on primary (DVI))

Voilà! Set and done!

Answer 3

I had similar issue,but for the windows command prompt. I had a secondary monitor which I use it for my development VM, So whenever I open my command prompt on my primary monitor, the window use to goto the secondary monitor, and the hard thing is when you are disconnected from the secondary monitor the cmd window is still not displayed in the primary monitor, but it will be virtually displayed to the secondary monitor, and you can only see that in the task bar of the primary monitor.

solution:

open the command prompt and right-click on that window, make the winodw-position values {left, top} to zero. now close the prompt and open again, it will open in the primary window always even if the secondary monitor is connected.!!

Answer 4

I know this is old, and the OP likely is well past this issue by now, but in case anyone else comes across this, I'll add my two cents. IME, Windows does a poor job with multi displays in general, and an especially poor job with a secondary monitor being positioned to the left of the primary monitor. For this reason, even if I have a secondary monitor physically to the left of my primary monitor (e.g. currently my TV is to the left of and further back from my monitor), in Windows I have it set to the right, so I go off-screen to the right on the monitor and come on-screen on the left of the display left of it. Certainly not intuitive, but it prevents all sorts of other issues. I suspect in the OP's case, Windows is simply using the left-most display as "primary" instead of the actual primary display because, well, Windows. So if anyone else is having this problem with a similar setup, I'd suggest trying to switch the displays' positions relative to each other in Windows' settings and see if that makes a difference and, if it does, consider rearranging them physically if possible.

Answer 5

Yeah I had this issue as well, UAC prompt positions got messed up with some apps and only display on the 2nd screen which happens to be my tv, anyway I managed to fix it, what you need to do is drag the UAC Prompt to your Primary Monitor and click show more details on the prompt then click change when these notifications appear, another UAC window will open up with a vertical bar with 4 different settings, just drag the bar setting down and then back up to it's original setting position then click ok, this will re trigger UAC's screen position to your primary monitor. hope this helps.

Answer 6

Late post but hope it helps somebody...

I want my CMD windows to pop up on my secondary window (right) where also I dragged the TaskBar. Left is my Primary selected screen in Windows settings for gaming. I dont want CMD's Windows to popup behind a game...

My Fix: 1] I opened a CMD (Window+R key) window and clicked the icon top left on the window bar.

2] On the menu I clicked Defaults.

3] Clicked layout tab.

4] In the Frame: Window Position I did the following: LEFT:

• I Added to the SCREEN resolution WIDTH of the LEFT (gaming) screen to the Half Of the SCREEN resolution WIDTH of the Right screen. This is now Center RIGHT Screen.
• Devided the ESTIMATED Width of the CMD window by two and subtracted that of the Value above.

TOP:

• I Subtracted the half of the ESTMATED CMD Window Height from the RIGHT SCREEN SCREEN HEIGHT.

Removed the "Let System Position Window" Bit and voi'la !

WIDTH FOR ME: So for me that was 1920+(1920/2) = Center Right = 2880 I estimated the CMD Window size to be 900 and the factor is 900/2 =450 Center 2880 - Right portion of CMD window 450 = 2430

TOP FOR ME: Height right Screen 1080 / 2 = 540 Center Right Screen Height CMD window estimate 480 pixels. For center = 480 / 2 = 240 Pixels. 540 - 240 = 300

Hope it Helps ;)

ps.: English is not my default language, please correct as necessary but restrain the smart comments ;) Thanks !