I have a Toshiba Portege with W8.1. I often hook up a second monitor when I'm working on multiple programs and usually my laptop recognizes when I'm no longer hooked up to them both. However, for the past 24 hours (and with multiple attempts to reset, including rebooting), I am unable to open a program on my laptop because it keeps trying to open in the other screen (which it can't find of course). As I said, I've reset the settings to one screen (and even tried to 'detect' a second screen and the laptop won't detect it), to no avail. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

smcNbi

You mention everything work fine before, is there any changes recently before this issue happen?

How do you connect to second monitor? HDMI, DVI, VGA or via WIDI

reinstalling graphic card will also reset the setting, try to reinstall or update, you can find the files at Toshiba manufactured site

you can also try system restore using restore point (if any)

I will also suggest you do clean boot

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

• Edited by britishdhez Wednesday, February 11, 2015 6:43 AM

Hi smcNbi,

Have you made any modifications to the machine or installed any software recently ?

First of all ,I would recommend you to run the built troubleshoot tool to have a diagnostic.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Troubleshooting\Hardware and Sound\Hardware and Devices

" I'm no longer hooked up to them both"
How did you project the screen (Win+P ,Duplicate ,Extend ,Second screen only )?

" I am unable to open a program on my laptop because it keeps trying to open in the other screen"
Is the desktop shown on this laptop screen ? Will the program been shown on the screen of the laptop ?If it won`t been shown on the laptop screen,disconnect the second monitor to have a check .

"and even tried to 'detect' a second screen and the laptop won't detect it"
Is the second screen a wireless device or a wire device ? Have you checked the connection issue? We may need to plug in the second screen to another machine to ensure it can work correctly .
We can open the device manager to update or reinstall the related driver (display adapter  driver,monitor driver) to have a check .

Best regards

• Edited by MeipoXu Wednesday, February 11, 2015 8:02 AM
• Proposed as answer by ZigZag3143xMVP, Moderator Wednesday, February 11, 2015 8:06 AM

unable to open a program on my laptop because it keeps trying to open in the other screen

That happens to me with PowerShell on my Surface RT.  No matter how many times I move it to the Surface display it opens off screen (as if it had originally last been open on the big monitor when I had it attached.)  I can't use the keyboard shortcut which would bring it back when it would have been attached (e.g. Win-CursorRight) because then it is not seen as being on another monitor.  However, what I can do--as always, even before multi-screen windows were available--is use the window's Move command.  E.g. with keyboard focus on the hidden window you can just press Alt-Space M.  Or you can right-click on its thumbnail in the Taskbar for the same effect.  You then need to use a cursor key to engage the mouse pointer with the window's Title bar and change its icon to drag it back.  If you don't have mouse you just have to remember which direction to bring it back and keep pressing on the arrow key.  It's more amusing than irritating when you know how to work around it but I suppose if it was annoying enough you could always hook up your other monitor again and then move the windows back to the primary display.