What can I do to retrieve windows that have gone off screen?

I am having a weird issue with a machine where sometimes when a window is initialized, it will shoot off screen and out of sight. I am unable to click on it to drag it back to sight.

Are there any programs or fixes for this in Windows XP?

I know Windows and other programs like to save window locations after they close so when you reopen them they are in the spot where they were closed and I cannot see any of these windows that were closed off screen.

Solution 1:

Highlight in in the task bar, hit ALT+SPACE then M. That will get it ready to move. Then use your arrow keys to move it and hit Enter when finished.

Try holding the Shift key while closing. That often saves the location.

Solution 2:

I have a geeky solution :-) Script in Python that goes through all off-screen windows and offers moving them to the left upper corner:

import winxpgui, sys, win32con

screen_width = 1920
screen_height = 1200

def WindowsListEnum(hwnd, data):
    pos = winxpgui.GetWindowRect(hwnd)
    left, top = 0, 0
    if pos[0] < 0 or pos[0] > screen_width:
        left = 10
    if pos[1] < 0 or pos[1] > screen_height:
        top = 10
    if left or top:
        print winxpgui.GetWindowText(hwnd), ',', pos, '->', (top, left, pos[2], pos[3])
        if sys.stdin.read(1) == 'y':
            winxpgui.SetWindowPos(hwnd, win32con.HWND_NOTOPMOST, left, top, pos[2]-pos[0], pos[3]-pos[1], win32con.SWP_SHOWWINDOW)

print "press 'y' to move the window, anything else to continue\n"
winxpgui.EnumWindows(WindowsListEnum, None)

You need Python and Win32all.

Solution 3:

In Windows 7 you can select the window and then Win + arrow keys to move it.

Solution 4:

You can also right-click on the taskbar and choose one of the window-arranging menu choices. In Windows 7, they are:

Cascade Windows
Show Windows Stacked
Show Windows Side-by-side

Previous versions used slightly different terms, but did the same thing. Some versions will only arrange non-minimized windows/applications, if I recall correctly.

enter image description here

Solution 5:

Set focus to the window, by clicking in the task bar or ALT+TAB.
ALT+SPACE to bring up the system menu.
M to select Move.
Tap an arrow key once to start moving the window.
Move your mouse.

The window will quickly pop in to view.

This is faster than using the arrows to move the window the whole way, especially if it is way off screen.