I am visiting my parents and need to do some work on their computer. They keep their screen at 800x600 for easy reading, while I am more accustomed to working at 1600x1400 and above. I was wondering if it was possible to set my user account to default to a higher resolution, while keeping theirs at 800x600.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this is possible


My first impulse when I read your question was "of course, it's possible!" But since I work mostly as a single user on my computer, I thought I should give it a shot first. I created another user account, with its own password and everything (just in case), and changed the screen resolution of that account. When I logged back into my own account, I found that it had changed its resolution to that of the other account.


So, as far as I can see, you can't customize individual screen resolutions in Windows XP. Which I find really weird, since it lets you customize basically everything else

You sure about that, took a few minutes to google this and you should be able to do it now.

http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw060304

My res is 1920x1000

This post has been edited by saint-michael: Nov 16 2006, 08:45 PM

You use 1600x1400 resolution??????????? That's quite a rare resolution...

Is it a 32", almost square monitor?

Anyway each monitor has it's recommended resolution, and you should use that. If you use a lower one the image may be pixeled and if you use a higher one you may lose some information...

Those are the steps I take to change my resolution, but in XP this seems to change it for everyone even under a separate user account.


Actually now that I think of it, I probably meant something more like 1600x1200, but I don't remember (I am away from home). I normally operate it at either that or 1920x1440. My monitor is a 19in CRT. It is very clear and operates best at higher resolutions and gets a little weird when going down to low resolutions like 1024x768. Furthermore, I just like having the extra screen real estate when I am working in multiple programs, especially with graphics programs that have all of those settings windows etc.

I never thought you could do that ... thanks saint-michael.

xboxrulz

I've tried to do this too because i like a higher resolution than other users on my computer, i have heard somewhere that there is a simple registry tweak that will change one account's resolution but i'm not sure if it really works, also i think there is a program that loads on boot and changes the resolution after you login.

-HellFire

But as it has been said from one user on this topic, every monitor has its own recommended resolution and if you want the best appearance you need to have the right resolution set, so I just don't understand one thing: If your parents are using 800x600 so what kind of a monitor they are using if you want to use 1600X1200?

Moreover, if you have a 19in CRT monitor isn't a such high resolution 1600x1200 really to big for you, I just think your monitor and eyes is just suffering, what is the size of your monitor screen refresh? can it display 100 or at least 85 Hz on such a resolution... What kind of a monitor you're using I would like to find on google and read the recommendations for it?

Furthermore, saint-michael the Resolution 1920x1000 has really a bad aspect ratio, how do you feel when watching some kind of a movie on full screen? How do you feel about your windows being different? due to your aspect ratio is not 1:1 as for resolutions 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1600x1200, 3200x2400.. but rather almost 2:1, unless you have a monitor which has strange width and height.. :?

I personally just use my 19in monitor with the recommended resolution 1280x1024, 100 Hz.. even though the aspect ratio for this resolution isn't 1:1, but the difference is very small and I got used to it.