"Maximize" doesn't work as advertised!

May 7, 2008 8:47 PM

On my external monitor (dual-monitor setup with a laptop), "maximized" windows do not take up the entire screen. How can I fix this?

So I have an Alienware laptop running Windows XP with a Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card. The laptop's screen is 15" and has a display resolution of 1280 x 800. I also have a 22 inch external monitor hooked up with a resolution of 1680 x 1050. The display mode is set to "dual view", which is basically a normal dual-screen setup.

Strange thing is, when I open a window on the 22" screen and maximize it, the window only fills a certain portion of the monitor screen--I suspect it's only using 1280 x 800 pixels instead of the full 1680 x 1050. I really like having some things fullscreen and it's very annoying to constantly be resizing things to fill the space.

Things have not always been this way; maximizing windows on the external monitor used to work fine. I have no idea what would have changed in the meantime.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if I've left anything out, feel free to ask and I'll provide as much detail as possible.

posted by DMan to technology (6 comments total)

Have you tried unplugging the display and reconnecting it? What about resetting the screen resolution setting for the external monitor (Display Properties > Advanced)? Does this problem persist across all applications?
posted by semi at 8:58 PM on May 7

semi: yes, I've tried resetting it both ways several times. Also, it does do this across all applications.
posted by DMan at 9:10 PM on May 7

What happens when you start in safe mode (I'm not sure if it allows multiple monitor or not, but basically just try to start Windows without the bells and whistles)? If this fixes it see what 3rd party program is causing the problem (most likely I think).
posted by semi at 9:17 PM on May 7

Googling "windows maximize dual.view bug" suggests this is an nvidia driver bug. Not sure why it would have started only recently. You might try making sure your nvidia software is up to date (though the most obvious reason that it would have started doing this is if it's a new bug.)
posted by Wood at 8:25 AM on May 8

When I posted the question I realized I had forgotten to update my drivers since then (I did reformat my computer in the timespan between it working and not working) but that had no effect, surprisingly.
posted by DMan at 9:12 AM on May 8

FWIW I've just had a problem pretty similar to this (windows wouldn't really maximise -- just get really big and still-draggable by the title bar) and solved it my ignoring the nVidia control panel and used Windows' built-in "Display Properties" pane to extend the desktop to the 2nd monitor. Doing this has even stopped the task-switcher appearing in between the two monitors. That said, I'm using my PC for development, not gaming, so you may be relying on the nVidia software to really squeeze everybit of juice out of the pixels.
posted by John Shaft at 4:29 PM on July 2