Well, this is fucking annoying

TomDunne

I used to have two 17" monitors I used for my workstation. When using 3DS Max, I kept the viewport maximized on the left/main monitor and all separate panels (render, materials, etc) open on the right monitor. Recently, I sold the two 17"s and got a single Apple 23" cinema display. Works great, except that Max isn't getting with the program and my render panel is still opening up in its last known position, way too fucking far to the right of my single monitor to see.

I've spent ten mintues poking around Max looking for a 'reset dialog/panels' option and have found nothing, and am currently about thirty seconds from heaving the whole goddamn computer out of the window. Does anyone have any suggestions for restoring lost panels without having to reinstall the application?

Tumerboy

get a second monitor (steal a friend's) open max, move windows, close max. Open max to confirm they are all on one monitor and then give your friend's monitor back. . . or don't. . .

rooster

I don't remember the answer but I recall reading of someone else having and fixing the problem on these boards in the not too distant past
edit: it didn't involve someone elses monotor

found.courtesy of rhinokey:

ok heres a quick fix for this problem ,and it also fixes lost photoshop windows,
1.in max press m to pop up the material editor,
2. press alt+ space and release
3.click the down arrow once and click enter
4. click any arrow key once
5. move mouse towards your monitor ! yay your material editor should be attached to the cursor

only takes 2 seconds!

or:

try looking through the 3dsmax.ini (and possibly other config files in max root dir). somewhere in one of those it surely saves the window positions.

TomDunne

Ah, fuck me, I never thought about moving it like that. Thanks a ton, rooster!

ScoobyDoofus

Uh, yeah all that or just reset to default UI...

TomDunne

I did reset the UI - it restore the panel layouts, but not the dialog panel locations.

ScoobyDoofus

huh...thats odd. I had that same problem for the same reason (I had 2 19" hitachi monitors, and replaced them for a 24" dell) and it worked for me.

CodeFather

In 3dsmax.ini find for example the [MtlEditorPosition], you should change all lines below this one which contains 4 numbers (e.g MainWindow=827 11 367 808, 827 and 11 are X and Y)

Here is a macro which do that:
(
max_ini_file = getMAXIniFile()
setinisetting max_ini_file "RenderDialogPosition" "Dimension" "200 200 355 792"
)