I find this beyond frustrating.
I have two extra screens on my laptop at work. I take my laptop and go home, with no extra screens connected. I come back, dock the laptop, and the windows need to be rearranged again.
Is there a way to get windows (or a utility) to keep track of the overall screen configuration (#, size, resolution), and remember where windows were placed, so when the screen configuration matches again, it puts applications BACK where they were?
DISCLAIMER: I'm the creator of this tool.
I've created a little tool to rearrange windows on a traybar icon click. You may compile it from source or ask to have a (portable) binary through the issues link.
It is hosted at Github: https://github.com/manutalcual/winredock
I would be glad to hear from you if you have suggestions.
EDIT: 2018/11/22
It is fully automated now.
I'm currently using DisplayFusion Pro for window location (not only). I don't know how this works when you disconnect and connect your monitor - I have three always.
I think, that you must close and reopen your apps to be re-arranged.
Edit: This is feature is available only in Pro version. - Information from comments.
homepage of DisplayFusion
Here is a console application to save and restore window locations and states on a Windows Desktop. To save windows locations run:
winLayout save
to restore windows positions run:
winLayout restore
Put these commands into a Desktop shortcut and pin to the Taskbar for convenience.
Disclaimer: I wrote this utility because the other tools on this page didn't work for me.
Caveat: It works for applications, but not explorer windows (at present)
The problem is that Windows applications don't really see multiple monitors. The window manager keeps track of window positions in reference to the Top-Left corner or your main display. I'm not aware of any commercial applications that do, but you could write an application in C# or even VB.NET that could write these values to a file and restore them later, but there would be no "trigger" for it. You'd have to tell the program when to store and retrieve the data manually.
Try this script, written for Excel. It stores the window positions in a sheet and restores them from there. You may have buttons on one of the sheets to run the store and restore macros, or shortcuts to VBS scripts that run the Excel macros, maybe with shortcut keys assigned. That way the Excel workbook can remain minimized. Of course something similar may be written in a compiled program.
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowPlacement Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, lpwndpl As WINDOWPLACEMENT) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function SetWindowPlacement Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, lpwndpl As WINDOWPLACEMENT) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindow Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wCmd As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowLong Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowLongA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function IsWindowVisible Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Boolean
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetParent Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As LongPtr) As Long
Public Type POINTAPI
X As Long
Y As Long
End Type
Public Type RECT
Left As Long
Top As Long
Right As Long
Bottom As Long
End Type
Public Type WINDOWPLACEMENT
Length As Long
flags As Long
showCmd As Long
MinPosition As POINTAPI
MaxPosition As POINTAPI
rcNormalPosition As RECT
End Type
Global Const gw_hwndnext = 2
Global Const fwp_startswith = 0
Global Const fwp_contains = 1
Global title As String
Global Visible As Boolean
Global RowCount
Public prog As String
Public Sub StoreActiveWindows()
Dim hwndapp As Long
Dim hwndmax As Long
Dim nret As Long
Dim WinFrm As WINDOWPLACEMENT
Dim RectFrm As RECT
PleaseWait.Show vbModeless
DoEvents
RowCount = 1
hwndmax = findwindow(0&, 0&)
Do Until hwndmax = 0
hwndapp = findthiswindow(hwndmax)
If hwndapp Then
If title <> "CURRENT WINDOWS OPEN" And Visible Then
rtn = GetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
RectFrm = WinFrm.rcNormalPosition
FrmTop = RectFrm.Top
FrmRight = RectFrm.Right
FrmLeft = RectFrm.Left
FrmBottom = RectFrm.Bottom
Workbooks(Filename).Activate
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = title
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2) = hwndapp
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3) = FrmTop
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4) = FrmRight
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5) = FrmLeft
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6) = FrmBottom
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7) = WinFrm.MaxPosition.X
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8) = WinFrm.MaxPosition.Y
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9) = WinFrm.MinPosition.X
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10) = WinFrm.MinPosition.Y
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11) = WinFrm.showCmd
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12) = WinFrm.flags
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13) = WinFrm.Length
RowCount = RowCount + 1
End If
End If
hwndmax = GetWindow(hwndmax, gw_hwndnext)
Loop
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12) = ""
Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13) = ""
Unload PleaseWait
End Sub
Public Function findthiswindow(ByVal hwndtopmost As Long) As Long
Dim hwndtmp As Long
Dim nret As Long
Dim titletmp As String
'Get the first window
hwndtmp = hwndtopmost
If GetParent(hwndtmp) = 0 Then
'Set its visibility
If IsWindowVisible(hwndtmp) Then
Visible = True
Else
Visible = False
End If
'Get its title
titletmp = Space(256)
nret = GetWindowText(hwndtmp, titletmp, Len(titletmp))
If nret Then
findthiswindow = hwndtmp
End If
End If
If Visible Then
title = titletmp & " - Visible"
Else
title = titletmp & " - Invisible"
End If
title = titletmp
If titletmp <> "" Then
'If title = "SETTINGS" Then
HasNoOWner = Not (GetWindow(hwndtmp, 4))
n = 1
'End If
If (UCase(Left(title, 15)) = "PROGRAM MANAGER" Or UCase(title) = "SETTINGS") Then
n = 1
title = ""
findthiswindow = 0
End If
End If
End Function
Sub RestoreWindowsLocations()
Dim WinFrm As WINDOWPLACEMENT
Dim RectFrm As RECT
PleaseWait.Show vbModeless
DoEvents
Workbooks(Filename).Activate
RowCount = 1
Do Until Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = ""
hwndapp = Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2)
' rtn = GetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Top = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3))
WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Right = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4))
WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Left = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5))
WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Bottom = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6))
WinFrm.MaxPosition.X = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7))
WinFrm.MaxPosition.Y = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8))
WinFrm.MinPosition.X = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9))
WinFrm.MinPosition.Y = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10))
WinFrm.showCmd = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11))
WinFrm.flags = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12))
WinFrm.Length = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13))
rtn = SetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
rtn = SetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
RowCount = RowCount + 1
Loop
Unload PleaseWait
End Sub
This one was looking promising: https://github.com/adamsmith/WindowsLayoutSnapshot
Unfortunately in my case, when saving the layout on 3x 24" 1920x1200 monitors, changing to one laptop 1920x1080, and then going back to three and trying to restore layout, windows didn't really move to other monitors. But maybe for someone else on other setup it will work.
Windows 11 can remember window locations:
Related Program to save visible windows' locations and later restore the layout.
A lot of windows users had this issue, an application was developed and shared within the windows 7 forums as shown here:
There are instructions on the site which help and it should fix your issue.
I fixed the problem with Window Manager from desksoft.com (there is a free trial period (the current price is $10)).
You configure two profiles (docked and undocked) and add a rule for each of the windows you want to place specifically. The profiles can be switched automatically via a "Screen Trigger".
I have a VNC session running full screen on one of two monitors but when I undock the laptop (e.g. to go to a meeting) I want to hide the VNC session without minimizing it. This can be done by moving it to a secondary Windows desktop.
I am not associated with DeskSoft in any way.
I've used Stardock’s Fences before in a similar scenario:
Fences helps you organize your PC by automatically placing your shortcuts and icons into resizable shaded areas on your desktop called fences. Its many customization features are what make Fences the world's most popular Windows desktop enhancement.
