[comp] windows screen taking up only half of laptop monitor

i'm trying to help someone online how to fix his laptop monitor prob.
his windows XP pretty much is shrunk half size on his monitor.
i remember reading something like this on this bbs but cant remember what worked. he tried restarting in safe mode, and it worked, but when going back to normal mode, the prob happens again.

help me?

 

um, never mind. its not the resolution. he gave me a bad explanation of it.
what happened was the idiot accidently dragged his taskbar halfway up the screen and then locked the taskbar.

here's a picture of a supermodel laughing at the uselessness of this thread