Enable screen resize?

January 29, 2006 10:16 PM

I have a 1024x768 resolution. When I run programs which are native to 800x600, instead of stretching to fit the whole screen, they show in 1024x768, but in a small box in the middle of my screen with a huge black border. The same thing happens when I manually change my resolution to 800x600 - resolution stays the same, but the viewable area shrinks, leaving a small rectangle in the middle and a large blank space around it. How can I fix this?

Before I upgraded my HD, my laptop had an IBM partition with some ThinkPad management program, with an option under display to "Enable screen resize". I was running Win98 SE at the time, and this always solved the problem. Now I'm on XP Pro, is there some similar, obscure option that I can turn on/off to solve this? Is there a registry entry I can edit/create/delete?

I should mention that this issue has only recently arisen, but I can't think of what I've done/changed to prompt it. This is also this first time it's happened to me with XP. I would provide a screenshot, but it only grabs a picture of the viewable area, so it looks just like a normal screenshot. Only smaller.

Any help gratefully received!

posted by djgh to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Somewhere in your video options there should be an 'image scaling' option (or something like that). See what you can find there, but it sounds like it's using a centred option rather than scaling to the full panel.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 10:35 PM on January 29, 2006

You might try right-clicking on the desktop, choosing Properties->Settings->Advanced, and looking for an adaptor or graphics driver properties tab there with some appropriate-looking resize option. If the adaptor type shows up as something generic (typically mentioning VGA somewhere in its name) instead of something specific to the video chipset installed in your machine, visit the IBM support site and download a new driver.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 PM on January 29, 2006

I have had this problem with my Dell laptop when booting up... it puts Windows in a smaller window with black space around it. When I see it happen I solve it by pressing Fn+F7(Font).
posted by hodyoaten at 12:12 AM on January 30, 2006

On my older T20 Thinkpad, this is handled in the BIOS. F1 on boot, and then go to Config/Display/HV Expansion, and turn that On. Save and exit.

If yours is in the same generation as mine, the screen scaling is incredibly blocky and awful, but it does work.
posted by Malor at 1:35 AM on January 30, 2006

My monitor has totally different settings for each combination of resolution and refresh speed, meaning each time I change to a new one for the first time, I have to adjust with the buttons on the monitor. This doesn't have any effect on the original resolution. Could be that your monitor drivers changed?
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:31 AM on January 30, 2006

On most Thinkpads, it's Fn-F8 to enable "fit to screen". Some models have it marked on the keyboard, some don't. But it's worked on ever Thinkpad I've used - is it a Thinkpad?
posted by GuyZero at 7:31 AM on January 30, 2006

on my old laptop, there was this ultra-secret key combination to enable or disable that. i think it was fn-t.
posted by lohmannn at 7:43 AM on January 30, 2006

Thank you Malor! I tried everything else suggested to no avail, but yours fixed the problem straight away! And thank you to everyone else for your suggestions.
posted by djgh at 10:03 AM on January 30, 2006