Remember window locations when docked and undocked

Question

I find this beyond frustrating.

I have two extra screens on my laptop at work. I take my laptop and go home, with no extra screens connected. I come back, dock the laptop, and the windows need to be rearranged again.

Is there a way to get windows (or a utility) to keep track of the overall screen configuration (#, size, resolution), and remember where windows were placed, so when the screen configuration matches again, it puts applications BACK where they were?

Answer 1

DISCLAIMER: I'm the creator of this tool.

I've created a little tool to rearrange windows on a traybar icon click. You may compile it from source or ask to have a (portable) binary through the issues link.

It is hosted at Github: https://github.com/manutalcual/winredock

I would be glad to hear from you if you have suggestions.

EDIT: 2018/11/22

It is fully automated now.

Answer 2

I'm currently using DisplayFusion Pro for window location (not only). I don't know how this works when you disconnect and connect your monitor - I have three always.

I think, that you must close and reopen your apps to be re-arranged.

Edit: This is feature is available only in Pro version. - Information from comments.

homepage of DisplayFusion

Answer 3

Try this script, written for Excel. It stores the window positions in a sheet and restores them from there. You may have buttons on one of the sheets to run the store and restore macros, or shortcuts to VBS scripts that run the Excel macros, maybe with shortcut keys assigned. That way the Excel workbook can remain minimized. Of course something similar may be written in a compiled program.

Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowPlacement Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, lpwndpl As WINDOWPLACEMENT) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function SetWindowPlacement Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, lpwndpl As WINDOWPLACEMENT) As Long

Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindow Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wCmd As Long) As Long

Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowLong Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowLongA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function IsWindowVisible Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Boolean
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetParent Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function GetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As LongPtr, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As LongPtr) As Long

Public Type POINTAPI
X As Long
Y As Long
End Type

Public Type RECT
Left As Long
Top As Long
Right As Long
Bottom As Long
End Type

Public Type WINDOWPLACEMENT
Length As Long
    flags As Long
    showCmd As Long
    MinPosition As POINTAPI
    MaxPosition As POINTAPI
    rcNormalPosition As RECT
End Type

Global Const gw_hwndnext = 2
Global Const fwp_startswith = 0
Global Const fwp_contains = 1
Global title As String
Global Visible As Boolean
Global RowCount
Public prog As String


Public Sub StoreActiveWindows()
    Dim hwndapp As Long
    Dim hwndmax As Long
    Dim nret As Long
    Dim WinFrm As WINDOWPLACEMENT
    Dim RectFrm As RECT

    PleaseWait.Show vbModeless
    DoEvents

    RowCount = 1
    hwndmax = findwindow(0&, 0&)
    Do Until hwndmax = 0
    hwndapp = findthiswindow(hwndmax)
    If hwndapp Then
        If title <> "CURRENT WINDOWS OPEN" And Visible Then
            rtn = GetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)

            RectFrm = WinFrm.rcNormalPosition

            FrmTop = RectFrm.Top
            FrmRight = RectFrm.Right
            FrmLeft = RectFrm.Left
            FrmBottom = RectFrm.Bottom
            Workbooks(Filename).Activate
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = title
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2) = hwndapp
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3) = FrmTop
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4) = FrmRight
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5) = FrmLeft
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6) = FrmBottom
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7) = WinFrm.MaxPosition.X
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8) = WinFrm.MaxPosition.Y
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9) = WinFrm.MinPosition.X
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10) = WinFrm.MinPosition.Y
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11) = WinFrm.showCmd
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12) = WinFrm.flags
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13) = WinFrm.Length
            RowCount = RowCount + 1
        End If
    End If
    hwndmax = GetWindow(hwndmax, gw_hwndnext)
    Loop
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12) = ""
            Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13) = ""

    Unload PleaseWait

End Sub

Public Function findthiswindow(ByVal hwndtopmost As Long) As Long
    Dim hwndtmp As Long
    Dim nret As Long
    Dim titletmp As String

    'Get the first window
    hwndtmp = hwndtopmost

    If GetParent(hwndtmp) = 0 Then
        'Set its visibility
        If IsWindowVisible(hwndtmp) Then
            Visible = True
        Else
            Visible = False
        End If
        'Get its title
        titletmp = Space(256)
        nret = GetWindowText(hwndtmp, titletmp, Len(titletmp))
        If nret Then
            findthiswindow = hwndtmp
        End If
    End If

    If Visible Then
        title = titletmp & " - Visible"
        Else
        title = titletmp & " - Invisible"
        End If
        title = titletmp
        If titletmp <> "" Then

        'If title = "SETTINGS" Then
            HasNoOWner = Not (GetWindow(hwndtmp, 4))
            n = 1
        'End If

        If (UCase(Left(title, 15)) = "PROGRAM MANAGER" Or UCase(title) = "SETTINGS") Then
            n = 1
            title = ""
            findthiswindow = 0
        End If
    End If
End Function

Sub RestoreWindowsLocations()
    Dim WinFrm As WINDOWPLACEMENT
    Dim RectFrm As RECT

    PleaseWait.Show vbModeless
    DoEvents

    Workbooks(Filename).Activate

    RowCount = 1
    Do Until Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 1) = ""
        hwndapp = Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 2)
'       rtn = GetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
        WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Top = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 3))
        WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Right = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 4))
        WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Left = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 5))
        WinFrm.rcNormalPosition.Bottom = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 6))
        WinFrm.MaxPosition.X = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 7))
        WinFrm.MaxPosition.Y = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 8))
        WinFrm.MinPosition.X = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 9))
        WinFrm.MinPosition.Y = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 10))
        WinFrm.showCmd = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 11))
        WinFrm.flags = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 12))
        WinFrm.Length = CLng(Workbooks(Filename).Sheets("Active Windows").Cells(RowCount, 13))

        rtn = SetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)
        rtn = SetWindowPlacement(hwndapp, WinFrm)

        RowCount = RowCount + 1

    Loop
    Unload PleaseWait
End Sub

Answer 4

The problem is that Windows applications don't really see multiple monitors. The window manager keeps track of window positions in reference to the Top-Left corner or your main display. I'm not aware of any commercial applications that do, but you could write an application in C# or even VB.NET that could write these values to a file and restore them later, but there would be no "trigger" for it. You'd have to tell the program when to store and retrieve the data manually.

Answer 5

Here is a console application to save and restore window locations and states on a Windows Desktop. To save windows locations run:

  winLayout save

to restore windows positions run:

  winLayout restore

Put these commands into a Desktop shortcut and pin to the Taskbar for convenience.

Disclaimer: I wrote this utility because the other tools on this page didn't work for me.

Caveat: It works for applications, but not explorer windows (at present)

Answer 6

This one was looking promising: https://github.com/adamsmith/WindowsLayoutSnapshot

Unfortunately in my case, when saving the layout on 3x 24" 1920x1200 monitors, changing to one laptop 1920x1080, and then going back to three and trying to restore layout, windows didn't really move to other monitors. But maybe for someone else on other setup it will work.

Answer 7

I've used Stardock’s Fences before in a similar scenario:

Fences helps you organize your PC by automatically placing your shortcuts and icons into resizable shaded areas on your desktop called fences. Its many customization features are what make Fences the world's most popular Windows desktop enhancement.

Answer 8

Alot of windows users had this issue, an application was developed and shared within the windows 7 forums as shown here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/free-developer-programs-projects/40916-shellfolderfix-manage-folder-window-positions-size.html#post396744 

There are instructions on the site which help and it should fix your issue.