Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Blindly restoring Windows XP screen resolution

Applies to Windows XP (any version)

Have you ever changed the screen resolution of your computer to where you have saved settings that your monitor cannot display? I have, several times. It's annoying at best to to have accidentally made a change and then not be able to see what you're doing.

Here are the steps to restore your display.
Please note that you have to be logged in.
If you need to blindly login to your account, I'll save those steps for a different post.

---------------------------------------------------
Take an educated guess and place the mouse cursor someplace on the desktop where you are not hovered over any icons or the toolbar.
  1. Click the Right Mouse button.
  2. On your keyboard, press the UP ARROW once, then press the ENTER key.
  3. On your keyboard press the TAB key four times.
  4. On your keyboard, press the RIGHT ARROW key four times.
  5. On your keyboard press the TAB key once.
  6. Then press the LEFT ARROW key four or five times
  7. Then press the ENTER key.
At this point you should have a viewable display.
The Monitor Setting dialog box will begin a countdown, "Reverting in n seconds".
Save your display settings.

And that should do it!

Blog Archive