How to swap Windows ID numbers for two monitors?

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coffent

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Dec 10, 2011
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I have two monitors. Before a computer crash, the one on the left was identified by Windows 7 as #1, and the one on the right as #2. Now the numbers are reversed and macros that rely on screen coordinates no longer function correctly. I've tried disconnecting the right (currently #1) monitor and starting the system with only the left monitor functioning. Windows identifies the monitor as #1 as desired, but as soon as I add back the second (right) monitor, Windows changes the left monitor back to #2.

Is there some way of getting Windows to call the left monitor #1?
 
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C
hang-the-9: Thanks. Actually, what I did was just swap the cables to the monitors. I thought I'd tried this some time ago without success, but this time it worked! (I have a video card with a single analog and a single DVI output.)
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Hlsgsz

Hlsgsz

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Feb 29, 2016
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Go into teh display settings and make the one you want to be no 1 teh main display.

Setup_07.png
 
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C

coffent

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[Not sure how this site works - when I click "Reply to xx" I'm brought to a screen intimating that I'm replying to my own question and proposing a solution (window is titled "Your solution"). This is a reply to both Hlsgsz and uberman, and NOT a proposed solution.]

Hlsgsz: Thanks, but the monitor currently identified as #2 IS the main display.

uberman: The GPU is a EVGA 01G-P3-1313-KR GeForce 210. For reasons I don't understand (& which is a separate question in itself) I can't get the NVIDIA control panel to display. However I have used it in the past when the problem I'm experiencing occurred previously and could find no way then to switch the IDs. I *can* display the Windows 7 display control panel and there is no means of switching IDs there.

Also, I've checked for solutions to this problem on this and other forums and no one, to my knowledge, has found a solution that works.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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I have worked in software that relied on the monitor numbering and not just position to work, bit of a pain, especially when you have dual video cards and 4 monitors with a hospital that loses several $100 an hour when a system is down.

Delete the info in this key, after backing it up of course HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY

You can try swapping connections on the card, if Monitor 2 is in the top slot for example, and you want it to be 1, with only that monitor connected move it to another slot.
 
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C

coffent

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Dec 10, 2011
13
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18,520
hang-the-9: Thanks. Actually, what I did was just swap the cables to the monitors. I thought I'd tried this some time ago without success, but this time it worked! (I have a video card with a single analog and a single DVI output.)
 
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