My Bride of 49 Years . . . How To Reset Screen Resolution

[BobH]

My lovely bride changed the resolution on her WinXP laptop to the very largest sized character display 580x640 or something like that. Now she nor I can set the display resolution back to a reasonable size because we cannot get to the bottom of the CP/Display/Settings screen to OK a change in resolution. I made the task bar go away and moved the window up as far as I could by gripping the title bar but no joys.

Can someone please tell me how to overcome this?

[June Bug]

If you can get to the slider bar change the resolution to what you desire and press Enter. You should now see the window asking if you want to keep the settings. Click yes and it should be back to normal.

JB

[BobH]

Hey JB!

Thanks for the response. It's especially good to hear from a Tar Heel. I'm originally from Raleigh.

For some reason, moving the slide bar does nothing to resize the display and show the popup asking if I want to keep the settings. In fact, clicking APPLY or OK does no good. I was able to to try this because I restarted in Safe Mode.

I also checked the Device Manager and could find nothing amiss.

I'm guessing that she changed something more than just the CP/Display/Settings panel, but I can't figure out what.

The PC is a DELL E1505 Inspiron LT if that makes any difference.

Color me puzzled.

[HansV]

Does a system restore to a date before the resolution change help?

[stuck]

we cannot get to the bottom of the CP/Display/Settings screen to OK a change in resolution.

Can someone please tell me how to overcome this?

Try right clicking on the title bar of the Settings screen and selecting 'Move'. Now you can use the keyboard 'arrow' keys to move the dialog box around. Unlike when you pick the title bar up with the mouse you find you can scroll the dialog off the top of the screen and thus bring bottom of the dialog into view and get the resolution slider bar.

Ken

[Goshute]

How about right clicking the desktop and clicking on Graphics Properties - does the resulting window size into current resolution? (With apologies if you have tried this, it's not clear from the preceding posts.)

[BobH]

How about right clicking the desktop and clicking on Graphics Properties - does the resulting window size into current resolution? (With apologies if you have tried this, it's not clear from the preceding posts.)

_________________
Goshute
I float in liquid gardens

BRILLIANT !!

When I right clicked in the Desktop and I chose the Graphics Options then Display Settings then clicked on the Aspect Ratio Options then chose Full Screen (No border). That returned my display to filling the screen. Changing screen resolution and other properties has me back to a reasonable display.

Thank you VERY VERY MUCH for this assistance!!

[stuck]

You should set the screen resolution to the LCD's 'native' pixel ratio. If that means the icons & fonts are too small to read then you should NOT make them bigger by changing the screen resolution. Instead you should use the options in:
1) Display Properties | Appearance tab | Font size drop down
2) Display Properties | Appearance tab | Effects button | Use large icons tick box
NB these instructions are applicable to XP, Vista & 7 have similar but more sophisticated options.

Ken

[BobH]

You should set the screen resolution to the LCD's 'native' pixel ratio. If that means the icons & fonts are too small to read then you should NOT make them bigger by changing the screen resolution. Instead you should use the options in:
1) Display Properties | Appearance tab | Font size drop down
2) Display Properties | Appearance tab | Effects button | Use large icons tick box
NB these instructions are applicable to XP, Vista & 7 have similar but more sophisticated options.

Ken

Thanks Ken!

I have no idea what she did or why she thought she needed to do it. It got shoved into my lap after she had it is such condition that she couldn't act on an options she could choose. After getting it started in Safe Mode, I was able to hide the task bar which then allowed me to try changing Display/Appearance/Advanced options and Display/Settings options. After getting things back to a reasonable use of screen space, I was left with black stripes down each side of the screen. The display mode was at its maximum and content was scrolling past borders. The problem was that the aspect ratio had somehow been changed. The screen on the laptop wants a 16:9 set up but somehow it was set at 4:3. What frustrated me was that I could find now wiki and now help and no forum posts that told me how to get to the options I needed until Goshute's suggestion. After finding the Aspect Ratio button, I knew I was home free. I had to go back and tweak a few things, but we're in much better shape than we were even before she started futzing with it.

I have reminded her only once (so far) that her blind fiddling caused me to spend nearly 8 hours to recover it. I swear I think she does these things to keep me on her agenda instead of mine. One of us has learned too much and the other too little in the 49 years we've been married. I think we know who is which.

[JoeP]

And your education continues.

Joe

[tomyrush]

Remember in the "dark old days" when loading a new version of windows forced you to reset to some ungodly font that you then had to change once you were able to do something

Tom

[tomyrush]

after thinking about this for a few more minutes, I think deaulted to one type of video card that then had to be changed.

Tom

[BobH]

The hubris of Microsofat is seldom exceeded.

[tomyrush]

49 years - when is anniversary - I have gotten rid of two - 30 years with one - 10 years with the other--

good luck making it to 50 - I gave up - my current girl friend and I just got back from a trip to NV - gambling, eating, swimming - we decided 5 years ago - been there done that -- so far it has been much better than other 2

Tom