Getting Your Screen to Stay in Portrait Mode (and Fixing Mouse Alignment)
Alright, so here’s where I got stuck a few nights ago. I rotated my monitor to portrait, expecting things to switch over smoothly, but nope—my mouse was still acting like it was on landscape. It was frustrating because the screen was rotated, but the input devices weren’t following suit. Turns out, the fix can be a bit hidden or inconsistent depending on your hardware and software setup.
First things first: a simple restart often helps
If you just recently rotated your display manually—say in Display Settings via Settings > System > Display—and the mouse hasn’t caught up, give it a reboot. Windows sometimes doesn’t fully recognize display orientation changes right away. When you restart, it tends to remember the new setting and, more importantly, updates how it handles input devices like your mouse. Just double-check that the orientation is correct in Display Settings: it should be set to Portrait or Portrait (flipped), depending on how you want it.
Apparently, monitor orientation isn’t always enough — check your graphics control panel
If a reboot didn’t do the trick, the next step is digging into your graphics driver’s control panel. That’s because display rotation might be set there independently of Windows. This part actually caused me a lot of confusion—these menus aren’t always obvious, and sometimes the hotkeys or settings don’t match what I expected.
For NVIDIA users
Right-click on the desktop and look for NVIDIA Control Panel. If it’s not there, you might need to install or update your NVIDIA drivers. Once inside, go to the Display menu, then find Rotate display. Set it to Portrait or Portrait (flipped). This way, the driver’s rotation is explicitly set, which influences how Windows and input devices behave. Also, you can try hotkeys like Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right/Up/Down Arrow. Sometimes they work, sometimes they’re disabled—I’ve had to re-enable them via the NVIDIA panel or disable global hotkey overrides in other software.
For Intel integrated graphics
Open the Intel Graphics Command Center, which you can find by searching in the Start menu. Inside, go to the Display tab, and look for Display Orientation. Here, you should see options like Landscape, Portrait, Flipped, and Portrait Flipped. Pick the one matching your monitor’s physical orientation. Sometimes, I’d see the orientation change on its own, or get reset—so it’s worth double-checking because the mouse gets all out of sync if the software thinks the display isn’t rotated.
For AMD GPU users
Same deal, but with AMD. The hotkeys like Control + Alt + Left Arrow can rotate the display, but honestly, they’re hit-or-miss, especially if you’ve updated drivers or they’re disabled. If they don’t work, open the AMD Radeon Software (right-click on the desktop > AMD Radeon Software) and look under the Display tab for rotation options. Each driver update can reset these settings, so check them after updates.
Updating your drivers can seriously fix all sorts of weirdness
Outdated graphics drivers are often the culprits here. If your display orientation is correct, but the mouse still acts weird, head over to your GPU manufacturer’s site—NVIDIA, Intel, AMD—and grab the latest drivers. Using their official tools like GeForce Experience, Intel Driver & Support Assistant, or AMD Radeon Software makes this easier. When installing, choose the Custom or Clean Install option—especially important for NVIDIA—as it clears out old driver remnants that might cause conflicts.
And don’t forget your mouse driver. Sometimes, driver mismatches can throw off behavior — check Device Manager (Win + X then select Device Manager), find your mouse under Mice and other pointing devices, right-click, and try Update driver. If that doesn’t help, uninstall it (right-click > Uninstall device), then unplug and reconnect your mouse, which will force Windows to reinstall a fresh driver.
Hardware issues? Possibly, but check your monitor and mouse first
If nothing software-wise works, maybe the hardware itself is at fault. Trying another mouse is a quick test—if the new one aligns properly with the portrait display, then your old mouse might have internal issues. Also, some monitors have built-in input calibration or orientation options accessible via their buttons or OSD menu—check if there’s any setting there that might affect input or display rotation. Replacing the cable (like switching HDMI to DisplayPort or trying another cable) can also sometimes help if signals aren’t getting through right.
Lastly, reinstall the mouse driver as a catch-all fix
Uninstall it completely via Device Manager, then reboot and reconnect. Windows will reinstall the default driver, which often sorts out weird alignment issues after display rotations. Sometimes old driver corruption lingers, and a clean reinstall clears out the problem.
Going deeper: clean boot and software conflicts
If the problem persists, consider doing a clean boot. This disables third-party apps and background processes that could be messing with display or input. Open msconfig (Win + R, type msconfig), then under the Services tab, check Hide all Microsoft services and disable the rest. Also, disable startup apps via Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and restart. If your mouse functions correctly in this state, start re-enabling services one by one until you find the culprit. It’s not a perfect process, but it might reveal a conflict in your software stack that’s causing the orientation mismatch or input lag.
Final tip: don’t give up too easily
All this stuff can be pretty tricky, and I’ve had nights where I felt like I was chasing ghosts. Usually, a combination of driver updates, checking the graphics control panel, and verifying hardware can get everything aligned again. Just a heads-up: monitor settings, driver versions, and hotkeys vary a lot depending on your exact hardware and OS version, so some trial-and-error is normal.
Hope this helps — it took way longer than it should’ve to figure out for me. But once it clicks, it’s a relief. Good luck, and don’t forget to double-check all those little settings and updates!