800x600 Res in full screen, but not widescreen???!!

Hi. My laptop is running the W7 RC without any problems, EXCEPT normally in general use, my monitor is in full screen mode, no problems what so ever. If I try run say Flight Simulator 2004, the program changes its res automatically to 800x600 to fill the screen. and back to 1440x900 for everything else.

HOWEVER, now, when i run Flight Sim (and it happens with other programs which require 800x600), I get a 800x600 res, but not in widescreen mode. Its got two black strips down the left and right...
How on earth do i fix this???!!??!??!! its driving me bonkers!

It's simply because 800x600 is not a wide screen format, you will always have the bars in that resolution.

740x480, 1680x1050, 1400x1050, etc are widescreen formats with no bars

but it used to do it and just blow it up to fullscreen (widescreen) size. why not now? and its the same with a dosbox program i use. used to go widescreen...now it doesn't...If i use another res like that, the game becomes a tiny window. is that fixable?

Well, I was going to say that resolutions are absolute and I remember being able to do that a long time ago.

But, I just did it and it does stretch to fill the screen. So, it is either a setting with your monitor, or drivers.

Is this a laptop or desktop.... laptop you may be able to hit Fn+F7 or F8.
Desktop, the setting (if it exists) will be in the drivers, or monitor options,,, maybe.

Technically,,, I think it should do it by default, unless your video card and monitor are not capable. But I have no idea.

well, surprisingly, I have fixed it for flight sim. I wasnt patient enough...with the settings on anything other than 800x600 in the program, the menus and startup screens and everything else are TINY...however once the game actually loads...it reverts to fullscreen again.
Nice now...i can actually read whats written!!!!

cheers for the help.

DreamFlyer,
It sounds as though you are experiencing an issue that many other users have seen as well. I would recommend asking the source directly. Microsoft does have an official Windows 7 RC Support Forum located here Windows 7 Category . It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams. You may want to check the threads there as well.
Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team