Windows Position and Size (Windows 7)

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Any recommendations for a good (and free) utility to lock the position and size of multiple application windows?

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Zeno,

Have a look at this thread and the PowerShell Code which allows you to setup different “Work” setups.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Thanks for the feedback but unfortunately, your response is way over my head.

I’m looking for a utility that can save (and lock) the window size and positions for three applications running.

I work in a manufacturing plant and want to prevent our machine operators from re-sizing or moving how their screens are setup. Ideally, it should be a free app. And even better, it would let me start open and lock those applications directly at logon.

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Thanks for the feedback but unfortunately, your response is way over my head.

I’m looking for a utility that can save (and lock) the window size and positions for three applications running.

I work in a manufacturing plant and want to prevent our machine operators from re-sizing or moving how their screens are setup. Ideally, it should be a free app. And even better, it would let me start open and lock those applications directly at logon.

Have a look at AutoHotkey (free, open source) and, in particular, its WinMove command that moves windows to X,Y co-ordinates you specify.

With any scripting language there’s always a learning curve but IMO the AHK support forum is usually very helpful to ‘newbies’ and contributors quite often write the code that ‘newbies’ have trouble with.

Alternatively, DonationCoder has a ‘Coding Snacks – New Requests’ forum which may be able to help with a specific freeware utility (which may be written in AutoHotkey).

Hope this helps…

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it would let me start open and lock those applications directly at logon.

Zeno,

Neither my code or AHK will LOCK the window location. They can both set it up initally at logon via a Scheduled Task but once that is done I don’t know of any way to prevent the user from moving or resizing the windows. However, you have piqued my interest and I’ll look into this functionality.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I work in a manufacturing plant and want to prevent our machine operators from re-sizing or moving how their screens are setup. Ideally, it should be a free app. And even better, it would let me start open and lock those applications directly at logon.

I haven’t been involved with something like this for a very long time, but I used to use Citrix and thin clients for similar situations and it allowed you to do this. But that’s an expensive solution.

What you may want to do is look into “Kiosk” software, which is designed to do things like this. There are also some things you can do in Windows 10 to lock things down somewhat, but I haven’t spent much time looking at them.

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Thanks for looking into this issue. My guys on the off-shifts can’t seem to keep their hands off. Rather than resorting to disciplinary actions (difficult to determine who’s doing what as there are dead spots in our cameras), I’d rather just take the temptation away from them.

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Do the machine operators have to interact, e.g. keyboard and/or mouse? Or are the monitors just for info displays only?

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They are interacting (both keyboard and mouse)

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Hey Y’all,

Interestingly, this question has been being asked for quite a few years w/o any satisfactory answers.

What we do know:

[*]You can use a variety of programs free and paid to do the initial sizing and placement of the program windows.
[*]This process can be started with a scheduled task initiated at logon.
[*]There is no way, it just isn’t provided by windows, to “LOCK” the setup in place.
[*]If you are writing the code you CAN simulate the LOCK function via an endless loop with a timer.

That said you could take code (like what I posted earlier) and modify it along these lines:

Code:

Do {

       Open program(s) if closed. (my code already does this)
       Position the windows as desired (my code already does this)
       Start-Sleep -minutes $Interval

     } Until ($False)  #i.e. do it all again in case they moved or were closed.

Of course, if the “I don’t want them messing with things” users decide to close the PowerShell program it’s all for naught!

But wait! there’s more… I found this little gem:

If you schedule the powershell job and run it under the system ID it
will be totally invisible. Unfortunately, because it is invisible, it
has no window title.

Thus the only way to shut it down is via the Task Scheduler or system reboot/shutdown but for this task that’s not a biggie.

So in the end this thing is doable if a bit kludgy!

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Zeno,

Ok, based on my post #8 here’s my code modified to “enforce” the windows size/position.

Features:
[List=1]
[*]Create configuration files using a spreadsheet like MS Excel. This allows multiple configurations.
[*]Set the interval, in seconds, that the program will “enforce” the configuration.
[*]Supports multiple screen setups (it does take some math but just addition, subtraction, and division and you can use Excel to do the work!).
[*]Includes complete Comment-Based help file. Access this using Get-Help drive:pathSet-WorkEnv.ps1 -full in PowerShell. *** PLEASE READ THE HELP! ***
[/List]

I hope you find this useful and easier to use as I’ve included in the .zip file a sample excel file and .csv file created from Excel.

In any event I enjoyed the challenge. I always enjoy bending the machine to my will. To bad it doesn’t work with my Wife!

ZipFile: 45168-Set-WorkEnv

Zip File Contents:
Function-Set-WindowSizePosition.ps1
Set-WorkEnv.ps1
WorkEnv1.csv
WorkEnv1.xlsx

Note: the PS1 files are both new versions so make sure you overwrite your previous versions! Also the program looks for those files in your DocumentsScripts folder. This can be changed if you want to adjust the $BasePath variable in the Set-WorkEnv.ps1 file.

Enjoy!

P.S. I haven’t tried the Scheduled Task as System yet but that’s for tomorrow!

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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AWESOME, can’t believe the degree and speed of help available on this forum. HUGE THANX to RetiredGeek! Can’t wait to try out his solution (unfortunately will be too busy over the next week or two with customer commitments).

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Here’s a utility that will do what you wish: ZMover. I have used it on dual monitor systems for years. It works extremely well and is very easy to use.

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