Question: My screen is upside down. How do I get it right side up?

Answer: My screen is upside down. How do I get it right side up?

This only occurs on certain monitors with certain video cards. However if it has occurred to you, it is frustrating. The case I was given a puppy walked across the keyboard.

In Windows Vista and XP this is relatively easy to fix. Press and hold the ALT and CTRL keys and press either the up arrow or the down arrow key. The sideways keys will turn the screen 90 degrees.

In Windows 7, it has to be intentionally done. Right click in an empty area on your desktop and choose Personalize. On the lower left click Display. Click Change Display Settings. In the Orientation drop-down box, there are options for Landscape, Portrait, Landscape-flipped and Portrait-flipped. On my wide screen the Landscape shows correctly. The Portrait turns the display 90 degrees counter clockwise. The Landscape-flipped turns it upside down and Portrait-flipped turns it 90 degrees clockwise. After making your choice choose Apply and it will change but pops a box asking if ok. If you do not click OK within 15 seconds it returns to the previous setting. That is nice, when you try flipping you will find it is hard to work mouse.

The reason for allowing you to do these is if you have a widescreen, and are working in documents or vertical items normally you can physically rotate some screens to allow more of document or image and this changes the screen display to match your screen.

Send me your questions about computers to me at the paper or to my e-mail dwight@dwightwatt.com and tell me you read this in the paper. I will pick a question to answer each week.