Visual Studio 2008, Multiple Monitors, "find" window placement problem

Question

(another post here reminded me of this annoyance! this is not a dup!)

I use VS2008 with multiple monitors. I have VS open on one and the app I'm debugging, reference pages, etc.. on the other.

The problem is when I open a find window (Ctrl-F or click on the "Find in Files" icon) the window opens smack-dab in the middle of the two screens: half on one, half on the other. Every time. It's fairly useless in that position, so then I have to drag it somewhere else. How do I convince Visual Studio to put the window on one screen, or the other?

I don't care which, just not split across both.

followup

1. Moving the window doesn't help. The position isn't remembered
2. And yes, it happens every single time.

Answer 1

Does it open like this every time? Mine remembers the position from the last place it was closed. (Could be UltraMon jumping it, not ruling that out)

You also have the option of docking it somewhere if that suits your preferences.

Answer 2

Visual Studio 2008 should remember where your Find and Replace window was last time you opened it, unless something is misbehaving on your system. I just checked the behavior on mine though and it seems to consistently appear where I last had it open.

So try moving it, then closing and reopening, does it still appear in the incorrect place?

Also, do you have visual studio maximized on one monitor, or just stretched in un-maximized state across both? Are you running any multi-monitor utilities that might alter this behavior?

Alternatively you could try inline search (Ctrl+i by default in VS2008)... for searching one file it's generally better anyway.

Answer 3

If you have a monitor per graphics card, then the find box should come up on one or the other. If, on the other hand, you're using one of the Matrox multi head boxes to drive 2 monitors from one video output, then your PC knows nothing about the two monitors, treats them as one and centers the dialog (As you've described)

To check things out, maximise a window - if it maximizes to a single monitor, then I'm wrong. If it maximizes to span both monitors, then I'm right.

Answer 4

What I usually do is I simply Dock the find dialog on the right side, with my Solution explorer - problem fixed - not elegantly but fixed. :-) You have to right click the title bar of the Find dialog to make it dockable.