[H] Laptop media box

[Winterlight]

I have a ACER laptop that was originally designed as a media laptop 
with a 16 inch HD screen. I want to use it as windows 7 Media Player 
box on my 58 inch Panasonic Vera Plasma . I plugged the HDMI 
port/cable into the TV and went into display. It correctly found the 
Panasonic TV and recommended a resolution of 1920X1028.

Everything is as it should be except the output picture displayed on 
the Plasma of my Desktop is too tall. I can just barely see the top 
edge of the Task bar on the bottom of the screen, and at the top I 
can't see any of the minimize, shutdown, etc buttons.  The Panasonic 
is set for FULL screen although I tried all the screen settings to 
see if anything would change. I can change the resolution, but then 
it is not perfect and I shouldn't have to change it...or should I?