fork of http://www.ninjacrab.com/persistent-windows/ with windows 10 update
GPL-3.0 License
This project addresses a long-standing issue in Windows 7, 10, and 11, where windows get repositioned after events such as the system waking up, external monitor connections or disconnections, changes in monitor resolution (e.g., exiting full-screen gaming), or during RDP reconnections. The code was forked from ninjacrab.com/persistent-windows.
What is PersistentWindows?
A poorly named utility that persists window positions and size when the monitor display count/resolution adjusts and restores back to its previous settings.
For those of you with multi-monitors running on a mixture of DisplayPort and any other connection, you can run this tool and not have to worry about re-arranging when all is back to normal.
Note: the program can be run from any directory, but the program saves its data in C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Local\PersistentWindows
This can be done by creating a task in Task Scheduler, or by adding a shortcut to the Startup Folder (shell:startup).
For PersistentWindows to be able to restore windows with elevated privileges (for tools like Task Manager or Event Viewer), it needs to be run with Administrator privileges.
Choose one of the three options:
Task Scheduler (Windows 10/11)
Task Scheduler (Windows 7/10/11)
start "" /B "%~dp0PersistentWindows.exe" -splash=0
schtasks /create /sc onlogon /tn "StartPersistentWindows" /f /tr "'%~dp0pw.bat'" /rl HIGHEST
REM Override High DPI Scaling
REG ADD "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v "%~dp0PersistentWindows.exe" /t REG_SZ /d "~ HIGHDPIAWARE" /f
Startup Folder (Windows 7/10/11)
Create a shortcut in the startup folder:
Win + R
, type shell:startup
For Administrator Privileges:
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
objShell.ShellExecute "C:\path\to\PersistentWindows.exe", "", "", "runas", 1
Note: It is possible for set shortcuts to be run as administrator, through the shortcut properties menu. However, this doesn’t work when opening the shortcut through the Startup folder, which is why we use this workaround with the .vb script
Run PersistentWindows.exe
(preferably as administrator). Note that this app has no main window and its icon is hidden in the System Tray area on the taskbar by default.
To have the icon always appear on the taskbar, flip on the PersistentWindows item in the taskbar settings.
Right click the PersistentWindows icon to show the menu, where the capture and restore actions can be selected.
To restore the taskbar position, avoid moving mouse when the icon turns red.
When software upgrades are available, a notice will show up in the menu.
PersistentWindows may malfunction on fractionally scaled display (such as 125%, 150% etc), it is strongly suggested to override the high DPI scaling property of PersistentWindows.exe to "Application" via Properties->Compatibility->Change high DPI settings dialog from explorer, user needs to capture windows to disk immediately after relaunching PW w/ the new DPI setting.
PersistentWindows can get stuck in a "busy" state (with a red icon in the System Tray) during a restore if one of the windows becomes unresponsive. You may find out the culprit window in Task Manager using "Analyze wait chain". The unresponsive app might need an immediate hot-upgrade, or need to be killed to let PersistentWindows proceed
PersistentWindows provides a rich set of command line options for customization, check out Quick Help page for a complete list of available options. how to customize command line options
The window Z-order can be restored in addition to the two-dimentional layout. This feature is enabled for manual snapshot restore only. To turn on Z-order fix for automatic restore, run PersistentWindows with -fix_zorder=1
To help me diagnose a bug, please run Event Viewer, locate the "Windows Logs" -> "Application" section, then search for Event ID 9990 and 9999, and copy-paste the content of these events to the new issue report, as shown in the following example
If there are too many events to report, click "Filter current log" from the Action panel in Event Viewer, choose all 9990 and 9999 events in last hour, then click "Save Filtered Log File As", select "Text (*.txt)" format, and attach the saved events file to the bug report