widescreen laptop

[joko]

can anyone tell me how to alter the screen so it doesnt stretch the images wide

im on windows 7 and the laptop is a compaq presario

thanks

[VHG]

Surely it is the other way round.

Your screen is probably fine, but the images are not of the same "ratio" as your screen.

If your screen is a widescreen format then if you try and display a non-widescreen image it will always stretch it if you want it to fill the full screen.

If you are looking for a desktop background image then you need to find one that is already the correct format.

So if you screen is 1680x1050 for example you can search the internet to find pictures of that exact size.

If you go into Google images, search for an image, then on the left you can select "exact size" and put in the exact size of image you want.

Google will display only images of that size.

You can right click on your dekstop to find out the size of your desktop (it will be in the format 1024x768 that sort of thing)

[joko]

thanks but no, i have just installed a new operating system and the screen is now stretched.

it was fine before

[jamsammich]

I think you need to change your screen resolution.

To do so in Windows 7, Right click on desktop, select screen resolution, Choose the one that best fits your monitor or the one windows recommends.

[VHG]

Maybe you need to install the graphics driver for your computer.

If you already have then check what your documentation says your screen resolution should be (like 1680x1050 for example) and set it to that.

Right click on desktop to set it.

[vascop]

This has got nothing at all to do with the screen resolution. It's got everything to do with the aspect ratioo of the display screen and the aspect ratio of the video you are sending to it.
You may have noticed that nearly every wide screen TV you see in pubs, clubs, museums etc, is incorrectly adjusted, and that all the people in the on-screen pictures are stretched horizontally.
This is because things are not set-up correctly. Not only is the picture distorted horizontally, but about a third of it is missing! The whole idea of widescreen was to give a picture with more on it. This is especially advantageous for sport etc.
See here http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/wide/
So the upshot of all this for your laptop is that you must make sure that the video signal you are sending to your widescreen display, is itself widescreen.
How you do this depends on what software you are using to play your videos. Make sure the aspect ration in the software is set to 16:9, not 4:3.
As far as your desktop and windows are concerned, you will need to adjust your display properties in the usual way.