PrtScr with two monitors

[ChrisGreaves]

How can I get PrtScr to take a snapshot of my main monitor?

In Which Monitor? I was advised to get (used to) two monitors. While I have not yet purchased two, I am employing two monitors in Extended mode, but struggle with PrtScr.

The Notebook and a larger standalone CRT DELL E773C monitor are employed.
The larger monitor is identified as (2), while the notebook monitor is (1).
I habitually work on the larger monitor (2) the DELL E773.

But when I tap the PrtScr key I get a snapshot of the other monitor.
I think of the large DELL E773C monitor as my main monitor because it has the Win7 toolbars running along the foot of it.

My current practice when I want to take a screen snapshot is to drag my window into the notebook screen, tap PrtScr, then drag the window back.
Ctrl-V in MSPaint gives me the desired image.

I have a feeling that my setup is not quite correct, and wonder if there is a way to tweak either the display settings or Windows to tell it to take a PrtScr snapshot of the second monitor.

[Claude]

Have you tried making the larger screen your primary monitor ? AFAIK, that should solve your problem.

[StuartR]

Chris,

When I use Print Screen I get an image of the entire extended desktop, including all the contents of both monitors. Because this image is also the size of two monitors it would be easy to not notice the right hand half of the image.

[ChrisGreaves]

Have you tried making the larger screen your primary monitor ? AFAIK, that should solve your problem.

Thanks Claude, but I think I have.
The DELL identified here as (2) is physically above the notebook screen, but acts as if it were to the right of the screen.

1.png

(Does a quick experiment)
Oh!
I just dragged the monitor shown as (2) in the screenshot to the left of the monitor shown as (1), and now things work the way I had expected.
That strikes me as odd.
I would have thought that the label (1) signified the primary monitor, not its physical layout on the "Screen Resolution" screen of the Control Panel.
I think at some stage I made (2) the right-hand screen because I am in the habit of sliding my mouse to the far-right to lodge it in the scroll-bar position (on the right) when reading multi-screen pages, e.g. newspapers.

It works now, so thanks; I'll have to think about this.

It seems as if (1), (2) represents the sequence in which monitors were recognized by the OS at boot-up.

[ChrisGreaves]

... it would be easy to not notice the right hand half of the image.

Why didn't I think of that!
Thanks Stuart.
You're right (as usual!).
I've been using the Ctrl-Shift-X function of MSPaint to crop the image, rather than my old Ctrl-A and drag, so I'd not noticed the acres of stuff over to the right.

Whew!
I have now dragged the (2) monitor back to the right (so I can slide the mouse to dock against scroll bars again!) and life is serene.
At least until the phone rings ...

Thanks again Stuart and Claude

2.png