Why do I get a popup saying hardware configuration has changed?

Sometimes when I start Modern Warfare 2 on my Windows 10 laptop, i get a popup asking me if I want to set optimal settings because my hardware configuration changed since the last time I played. If I press yes, my resolution drops, the game takes up 1/4th of my screen... Why do I get the popup if I dont change anything with my hardware and why does the resolution drop if I select "Yes"?

Solution 1:

It could be a problem with your configuration getting reset.

Try setting the file config_mp.cfg to 'Read-only'. This file contains your user settings, and can be found in Steam\steamapps\common\MW2\Players.
Right-click the file, select 'Properties', and select (or deselect) the 'Read-only' flag (if it's Read-only already, it might not save your custom changes; if it's not Read-only yet, they might get overwritten by the default settings every time the game starts up).

If this doesn't yield the desired results, you might want to check other files in that same folder for the same flag.