Well if you landed on this post via a Search Engine, then chances are high that you have accidentally managed to rotate your monitor screen and desperate to find out a solution that helps you revert back to normal. Okay let us use our “crystal ball” and guess what happened:
Your 6 month old kid was smacking the keyboard of your laptop last evening and somehow rotated the entire screen 90 degrees. Now everything is shifted (rotated); web pages, the desktop, the task bar and even the mouse cursor. You have tried repeating the accidental keyboard shortcut (that your kid pressed causing all this) but still don’t have a clue on “How to correct this“! This is what happend. Right?
Whether it was your kid who caused this or it was you or someone else, whether it is your desktop PC that is affected or your laptop, as long as you are dealing with Microsft Windows XP or above (Vista, Windows 7) the solution is much simpler than you had imagined. Here is what you need to do to get rid of your rotated monitor screen and get it back to normal:
If your system has this particular Intel graphics driver and runs on Win XP:
> Right click on your desktop.
> Click open “Properties”.
> Click open “Settings” tab.
> Click open the “Advanced” tab that is seen towards the bottom right corner.
> Click open the “Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver” tab.
> Click open “Graphics Properties” tab seen towards the bottom right corner.
> Click open “Rotation” tab.
> Make your changes.
Another way to do this is:
> If you have the Intel (R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver icon in the systems tray at the bottom right hand corner of your screen or in your quick launch tool bar, then double click it to open the menu.
> Select “Graphic option” and then the “Graphic Properties”.
> Click open “Rotation” tab.
> Make your changes.
Keyboard Shortcut to rotate your monitor screen (Win XP):
Try holding down <CTRL> + <ALT> + Any cursor (arrow) key and that will rotate your desktop (Up = Upside down, Down = Normal, Right = 90 degree clockwise and Left = 90 degree anti-clockwise)
For any other OS (Win Vista, Win 7 etc):
> Right click on your desktop.
> Select “Graphics Options” from the context menu.
> Select “Rotation” from the context sub-menu.
> Make your changes.
Keyboard Shortcut to rotate your monitor screen (Win Vista, Win 7 etc):
Try holding down <CTRL> + <ALT> + Any cursor (arrow) key and that will rotate your desktop (Up = Upside down, Down = Normal, Right = 90 degree clockwise and Left = 90 degree anti-clockwise)
If you are still wondering how your kid managed to make so many clicks/key combination perfectly to rotate your screen, perhaps it was the keyboard shortcut ( <CTRL> + <ALT> + Any cursor (arrow) key) that must have done it
Hope this little trick helped you to get back your un-rotated monitor screen. Let us know if it didn’t!











Thank you for the tips. It will be really helpful in the future. I guess we can drag it as well.
Ricky ´s last blogpost >> Opera Mobile 10 Beta Available for Windows Mobiles
You are welcome.
By the way, would you please help me understand what you exactly meant when you said: “I guess we can drag it as well”?
yep, exactly, i now remember, i have also dragged it with mouse, as i say its a bit hard, have to click and press on the taskbar and drag it up, initially it will just raise the task bar, but with some hard work, it will flip the screen upside down or on the sides… i did it that way the first time, never knew that with arrows and the keyboard combination, it is so easy…
Uttoran Sen´s last blogpost >> Utilize Two OS in a Single PC – Windows 7 with Vista or XP
Looks like I have some testing work to do to verify your way to fixing this glitch. Thanks for letting me know this possible workaround
unusual but still usefull..
Well buddy, you never know!
Let me give you one more realistic scenario:
If you have ever used VLC Media Player (yes the reputed one) then you would probably know the keyword combination CTRL + Arrow (left and right) for Fast Backward/Forward. Assuming that you are using a laptop (where CTRL and ALT keys are often placed together), just imagine how the possibility of accidental CTRL + ALT + arrow suddenly goes up
Well that sounds like a real life scenario
I’m aware of Ctrl+Alt+Arrow combination., but never knew it doesn’t work on other OS
Which “other OS” are you referring here, Ram?
lol i remember when i had accidentally done this and could not revert it back, did not knew how it happened and i was almost panicking,
but after some real hard work and some very tense moments i got it back to normal. did not used the arrow keys, did it with mouse, its a little tough but i managed in a few attempts, wish i had found this article that time it would have been great

Uttoran Sen´s last blogpost >> Utilize Two OS in a Single PC – Windows 7 with Vista or XP
There is never too late for anything in life. Who knows when you repeat that accident again and need this little trick to get back your monitor settings?
Great to see your FIRST comment on TechChunks. Welcome aboard
I must say that this trick is not very rare but very very helpful when those cute lookings smack their hands on the keyboards!
Looks like I should have kept the title of this post as: “A nice little trick that comes in handy when your nice little kid decides to start testing your computer”!
Looking funny, I never looked this type of issues.
Pavan Somu´s last blogpost >> Searching For DVD Cutter, Try DVD Knife
Yes it is funny. But when you don’t know how to resolve this issue, it can suddenly look like a serious one!
Don’t believe me? Use (Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow) now and pretend that you don’t have any clue how to recover your monitor screen