Well,

I've kind of got a problem with book2. If I run it windowed mode, it is too large top to bottom (some of the game screen is off the screen at the top and hidden at the bottom below the windows bar. I can minimize my task bar and move the window and I still lose a bit of screen space.

If I play full screen, it stretches the game to fit the width, which makes everything look really awful. 1366x768 is the native resolution. If it started in fullscreen mode and just used 1024x768 and put black bars on the left and right, that would be perfect. As it is now, it widens to 1366 but obviously cannot grow any top to bottom and everything looks terribad.

Any suggestions?

From the Game Manual:

Computers with Widescreen monitors
Eschalon: Book II uses a default resolution of 1024x768. If you have a widescreen monitor and are playing the game full-screen, the game screen may appear to be stretched across the width of your monitor, making the game appear distorted. This can usually be fixed by going into your computer‟s Display Properties and locating the option to maintain video aspect ratio. If you need help doing this, please contact your computer manufacturer's technical support center.

That set me on the right path, thanks mate. Laptops are screwy ... on my desktop I would have had that figured out in about 10 seconds ... the laptop had that option very well hidden.

Wish that worked on Doom and Heretic. Have to keep an old CRT handy, if I want to play without artefacts.

Are you using the stock Doom/Heretic engines, as opposed to a newer port?

Tried a couple of launchers, and even bought the collection set, but even in windowed mode (when that works, some of the launchers I tried don`t even seem to implement that, even though they claim it!), it is still usually dodgy.

Besides, in a way I still quite like using CRTs, they do seem to have a greater sense of depth than flat screens.

The best thing about CRTs is their superior resolution scaling. The drawbacks were "radiation," size, and power consumption. People used to come to me all the time complaining about headaches and such, until I showed them how to adjust the refresh rate... it was like magic!

Have you tried any of the engine ports from www.doomworld.com? They've got some slick ones that support OpenGL, DirectX, and features like mouselook.

Will take a look, thanks.
Concentrating on Book II for now.

came here looking for a solution for this too, was looking at the config file but the only setting is windowed=0 (not sure what i was going to attempt if there were more options).

anyways, i went so far as to set my (native) 1680 x 1050 to 1024, still got the loss of the left side in game.

SO, i sat puzzled for a sec until i decided to use the auto-adjust on my monitor and wa-pow! all good. lol, so if anyone was puzzled by this like me, there it is.

by the way, very nice improvement in visuals from book 1! when book 3 comes out i hope you guys don't move too far from your old school graphics!

This is not very helpful, I don't have an option in window's vista that I can find to Display Properties, there is Display settings but no option to maintain video apsect ratio anywhere, I would much prefer to play in fullscreen mode, but until I get this figured out, I am stuck in windowed mode to see the screen properly, which btw is a bit too small for me.

Try clicking on the Advanced Settings in the Display Settings... there may be a tab for the manufacturer of your video card. This isn't really a Vista setting to begin with.

Another option would be to just lower your display resolution, making everything else larger.