I have a PC (Dell Optiplex 780) and a laptop (Dell Latitude 6230), both 64 bit and running Win 10. I use the PC at home, and the laptop when I am at my local Archive doing research for visitors etc. But occasionally I notice a difference in display between the two machines. Most of the time, it's of no consequence, but occasionally it can be irritating, and I would like the laptop to mimic the PC more closely.
For example, a web site run by Cornwall Council has a lot of useful information on it showing map locations for all sorts of things, such as rights of way, tree preservation orders, mines and mining. The web site is here
formatting link
or in longhand
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In the upper orange box, click on layers, and a list of things that can be displayed appears, each with a little box adjacent showing a + symbol inside. Clicking Historic Environment, for example, brings up a secondary list with more + symbols, and more boxes, this time empty. Clicking on any of those empty boxes shows the positions of those features on the adjacent base map.
But that is where my PC differs from my laptop. While the PC offers the secondary list as I have just described, with boxes adjacent to the various selections to choose from, my laptop doesn't, It just offers the secondary list with boxes and + symbols without the empty boxes adjacent. Clicking on any of the secondary features on offer just brings up a symbol but nothing is displayed on the map.
I presume the laptop has some basic settings somewhere in its system that would allow me to get the same display as I do on my PC, but although I've looked in settings>system>display nothing there seems to differ significantly between the two computers apart from the display resolution, which is 1280x1024 for the PC and 1366x768 for the laptop, which I assume is there because of differences in screen size and proportions.
I have come across something similar with a database, where selected information is highlighted in red on the PC but black on the laptop.
Can anyone suggest how I might get the displays on the two computers to match for this particular feature? Is it something to do with colour display, for example?
Try shrinking down the window on each system. At a certain size, do some of the options disappear? That's an example of 'responsive design', where they simplify the display for use on small screens like phones. It could be one display is small enough to trigger the hiding.
That said, I shrunk the window down to its smallest extent on Firefox / Linux and everything behaved the same, no options in the list disappeared. That was just wide enough for the 'Cornwall Council Interactive Map' box and the +/- to appear. The Cornwall Council logo did disappear, suggesting they are using responsive design.
Which browsers are you running on what OS? Maybe the website works differently on each? Maybe one is too old for the website to work properly?
Thanks for the reply. The PC is running Win10 Pro, version 22H2, installed 04/11/2020, OS Build 19045.3930, with 4GB of installed RAM. The browser is Firefox version 121.0.1. (the latest. It seems to update every couple of weeks!)
The laptop is the same, but OS installed 14/05/2021 (can't see that making a difference), and installed RAM of 16GB (not sure why the laptop should have 4x the RAM of the PC. If it was the other way round, I might think it significant, but it isn't TOWR). Both computers have SSD's.
I try to keep them as similar as possible in terms of software etc, to keep my life simple and avoid complications. I'm not a techie.
Both computers are second-hand, bought some while ago, but they work well enough for my needs (well, most of the time!).
Spec differences shouldn't matter - they're both modern OSes and browsers, and especially if they are the same browser there shouldn't be a difference.
Do you have any addons, extensions or adblockers in the browsers? Perhaps they can interfere with the page?
Try setting both to the same resolution - it will look wrong on one or both, but you can then see if it is just a result of the "responsive" web page or something else.
Also check the scaling property is the same in the display settings on both.
I have an Optiplex 780 refurb, and the built-in graphics prevents updating the Windows 10 OS to 22H2. I placed a retired video card from the junk room (HD6450, low power card), and that still has a good-enough driver, for it to work. But the GMA in the chipset, is getting too old for decent updates (or even, decent functions).
It's possible the two machines are not reporting the same useragent string. And are getting served different web pages.
There can be quite a difference, between what the browsers think of the hardware support for their output.
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Thanks for the replies but I've just gone through all the FF settings with both computers side-by-side, making sure that they are all the same between both computers. A few differences identified, and lo and behold, the laptop is now displaying the same boxes and colours as the PC! It seems to have sorted one or two colour oddities elsewhere as well. Great!
First off try using the + and - keys to zoom in and out and see where or not the data appears. Otherwise it may be that you have some privacy features enabled or Javascript disabled on the lap top. Try temporarily disabling any ad blockers and/or starting the browser ins vanilla mode or comparing every setting on the desktop with the laptops browser settings.
Both of your machines have licenses. The licenses are stored in the cloud. The license would not have mattered anyway, but just for old times sake, you have licenses that can be activated automatically.
If you move a disk (or clone the information onto a device suitable for use inside the other device), it will boot off the foreign item, it will install drivers as needed, and come up. In fact, this is how you get Win11 (which "needs" TPM and MBEC) onto a Win10 machine, by transplantation and boot.
In the case of Win11, at runtime, it "sniffs" the hardware and shuts off subsystems where the dependencies are not met. The installer may be a "rigid mess", but the runtime is flexible.
The TPM could cause issues. For example, say the original disk was Bitlocker protected and TPM keyed, and you moved the disk into a machine which does not have the same TPM (same TPM datafill). Then you won't initially be able to unlock the drive. But with the recovery key (or decrypting before transport), it might work.
I haven't extensively tested this, but I did try the "simple" version of Win11 in a second computer not intended to run Win11, and it booted fine.
This is unlike Windows of long ago, where you needed "a few tricks" to move a disk, and you would trigger license issues which could have a zero grace period (machine locks up). Windows today, is almost as flexible as Linux. I moved my copy of Win2K, between four machines (running on only one machine at a time), using the tricks. Some moves took multiple tries to get it right. That's where I learned to use cloning and don't throw away or destroy the original, when doing a "move".
If you "had to copy settings and everything" from one machine to another, you could clone a disk and test. That does not particularly mean this is a "useful" idea. For me, it was just a bar bet, and it worked. If you are using a lot of Windows features, there could be issues. The sandbox might switch off, if hardware virtualization was not present perhaps. But at least in the Win11 test, it just shuts off the stuff where the hardware is not up to it. The TPM (secure boot, Bitlocker) is a separate set of issues. I don't secure boot anything here, as I don't need the headaches. My physical TPM module in the new computer, is like a drivers license, it just sits there, but it is *never* used. I just steer around it.
For Bitlocker, you prepare a recovery key. If your TPM is "flattened" in a computing accident, your data is not lost. The recovery key should be on some sort of portable media (tested as visible on all computers).
Windows has all sorts of capabilities I'm not interested in. You could move from computer to computer and pick up where you left off. I never do stuff like that. I think it might have had the ability to remember a session, from one run to another (not exactly hiberation, might require an MSA and cloud storage for some of the session info sort of thing). In a sense, it was intended to integrate with a desktop full of toys.
You might also be able to boot a copy of Windows stored in a .vhd file. I tried this, and the boot process got into a loop. The Windows image in the .vhd, might have been hosted by a USB stick.
There is a tendency for us to think of it as "just as bad as Win2K", but it's not really. You would need an evangelist to explain all the possibilities -- the documentation might not be up to the task, and I find what documentation they offer to be bland and uninspired. I know that developers do not like to write documentation, and the prose in some of them, it "shows the pain" of the individuals writing it. A shame really, as attitude is everything, in a successful project. Your enthusiasm helps pave over your mistakes :-)
It could be one is using generic drivers, and most likely the laptop has its own bespoke ones from the laptop makers. You often get this issue with sound drivers as well. Brian
Maybe your laptop doesn't like being in a cold environment ? (if this the building that you have previously asked questions about insulation :-).
If both computers are running the display at 1920x1080 then they should show the same detail. Is there any possibility that your home PC has a monitor that supports 1920x1200 . This might explain the difference.
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