{"id":69313,"date":"2005-07-26T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-26T15:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2005\/07\/26\/how-can-i-tile-the-windows-on-the-desktop\/"},"modified":"2005-07-26T15:42:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-26T15:42:00","slug":"how-can-i-tile-the-windows-on-the-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/how-can-i-tile-the-windows-on-the-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can I Tile the Windows on the Desktop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hey, \n

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a script that opens nine different command windows in order to monitor performance. How can I tile those windows horizontally after they\u2019ve all been opened?

— AM<\/P>\"Spacer\"\"Hey,\"Script<\/A> \n

Hey, AM. You know, one of the Scripting Guys might not be much when it comes to scripting, but he is<\/I> a master of one thing: he has a near-monopoly on totally useless knowledge. For example, he knows all nine verses of My Darlin\u2019 Clementine<\/I>; heck, he can sing O Come All Ye Faithful<\/I> in Latin. He knows the first – and last – names of all the castaways on the original Gilligan\u2019s Island<\/I>; he even knows Paul McCartney\u2019s first name. (And, no, it\u2019s not<\/I> Paul.) Every day this Scripting Guy comes to work hoping someone will ask him who came up with the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Every day he goes home disappointed.<\/P>\n

But today is different. Many, many years ago this same Scripting Guy learned how to tile windows using a script. Not being particularly imaginative, he couldn\u2019t think of a scenario in which this might prove useful. Therefore, he decided he\u2019d just wait until someone asked him how to tile windows using a script. He\u2019s been waiting a long, long time.<\/P>\n

AM, you\u2019ve at last made this Scripting Guy one happy camper. You want to know how to horizontally tile windows? All you had to do was ask:<\/P>

Set objShell = CreateObject(“Shell.Application”)\nobjShell.TileHorizontally\n<\/PRE>\n
Good point: after all these years you\u2019d expect something more dramatic than just two lines of code. But that\u2019s all it takes. You simply create an instance of the Shell.Application<\/B> object and then call the TileHorizontally<\/B> method. If you want to tile your windows vertically, you can use this code:<\/P>
Set objShell = CreateObject(“Shell.Application”)\nobjShell.TileVertically\n<\/PRE>\n
And if you want to cascade your windows, use this code:<\/P>
Set objShell = CreateObject(“Shell.Application”)\nobjShell.CascadeWindows\n<\/PRE>\n
Pretty easy but, then again, no one said you had to be Professor Roy Hinkley in order to tile windows. (Yes, Roy Hinkley was<\/I> the Professor on Gilligan\u2019s Island<\/I>.)<\/P>\n
Two minor caveats here. First, these methods work only on the local computer; that\u2019s because you can\u2019t instantiate the Shell object on remote machines. But unless you were planning on having some fun by tiling and re-tiling the windows on someone else\u2019s computer that shouldn\u2019t make much difference.<\/P>\n
In addition, we should point out that this script will tile all<\/I> the windows on the computer, not just the nine command windows you started with your script. But that\u2019s true even if you tile windows manually (by right-clicking the Taskbar and then clicking Tile Windows Horizontally<\/B> or Tile Windows Vertically<\/B>). Something you\u2019ll just have to live with.<\/P>\n
Just to show you what this might look like in real life, we\u2019ve created a script that opens nine command windows and then tiles the desktop. Note that we added a Wscript.Sleep<\/B> statement and paused the script for 5 seconds (5,000 milliseconds) before tiling the windows; we did that to make sure all nine command windows were open and visible onscreen before we tiled them.<\/P>\n
Here\u2019s what the code looks like:<\/P>
Set objWSHShell = CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”)<\/p>\n
For i = 1 to 9\n    objWSHShell.Run “%comspec% \/k”\nNext<\/p>\n
Wscript.Sleep 5000<\/p>\n
Set objShell = CreateObject(“Shell.Application”)\nobjShell.TileHorizontally\n<\/PRE>\n
And here\u2019s what the desktop looks like after running the script:<\/P>\"Windows \n

We\u2019ve waited a long time to see a picture like that.<\/P>\n
Oh, and one more thing: it\u2019s James. James Paul McCartney. Thanks for asking!<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a script that opens nine different command windows in order to monitor performance. How can I tile those windows horizontally after they\u2019ve all been opened?— AM Hey, AM. You know, one of the Scripting Guys might not be much when it comes to scripting, but he is a master of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,3,707,5],"class_list":["post-69313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-desktop-management","tag-scripting-guy","tag-shell-application","tag-vbscript"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a script that opens nine different command windows in order to monitor performance. How can I tile those windows horizontally after they\u2019ve all been opened?— AM Hey, AM. You know, one of the Scripting Guys might not be much when it comes to scripting, but he is a master of […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}