Multiple Monitors in Windows XP
I recently received a new graphics card for my work PC to try and setup a dual monitor system and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was!
My machine was currently using the onboard video, so I bought a cheap PCI card (a Radeon 7000 64MB PCI for £23 from dabs) to provide the second output. This was because I had read that using an AGP graphics card prevents the onboard graphics from working as well.
Once the new card was installed, it was detected fine and windows automatically installed the required drivers for it.
I then had a moment of concern when I realised Windows was no longer detecting the onboard video, but this turned out to be because the BIOS had automatically disabled it. A quick change of the BIOS setting fixed this problem, and Windows could see both graphics adapterss correctly.
It was then a simple matter of going into the Display Settings and choosing the 'Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor' option for the second (onboard) display.
Having got the 2 moitor setup working correctly, there were two things that stood out that I wanted to fix. The first was to have the windows taskbar on both monitors (ideally only showing the windows displayed on that monitor), and the second was to get a nice panoramic wallpaper that displayed across both monitors.
The UltraMon product does solve these problems along with providing lots more features, but it isa commercial product and I didn't really want to spend any money so I started looking for some free alternatives. :)
Oscar's Multi-Monitor TaskBar from Mediachance solves the first problem. This free tool provide a new taskbar for the second monitor, and ensures that only the windows displayed on each monitor appear on the associated taskbar. This tool also provides buttons to easily move a window between monitors. The only problem with it is that it doesn't really fit in with the XP look and feel!
In order to get a wallpaper to display across multiple monitors, I read that if you choose the 'Tile' setting it will do this. However, as a consequence you need to make sure that your image has the right resolution, as no scaling will be applied. I found a great collection of suitable images from deviantART in their multi display wallpaper category.
Overall I'm impressed with how easy this was to setup. I'm only just working out how best to make use of the two monitors at the moment, but I'm sure that once I get used to it I wont want to go back! :)
My machine was currently using the onboard video, so I bought a cheap PCI card (a Radeon 7000 64MB PCI for £23 from dabs) to provide the second output. This was because I had read that using an AGP graphics card prevents the onboard graphics from working as well.
Once the new card was installed, it was detected fine and windows automatically installed the required drivers for it.
I then had a moment of concern when I realised Windows was no longer detecting the onboard video, but this turned out to be because the BIOS had automatically disabled it. A quick change of the BIOS setting fixed this problem, and Windows could see both graphics adapterss correctly.
It was then a simple matter of going into the Display Settings and choosing the 'Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor' option for the second (onboard) display.
Having got the 2 moitor setup working correctly, there were two things that stood out that I wanted to fix. The first was to have the windows taskbar on both monitors (ideally only showing the windows displayed on that monitor), and the second was to get a nice panoramic wallpaper that displayed across both monitors.
The UltraMon product does solve these problems along with providing lots more features, but it isa commercial product and I didn't really want to spend any money so I started looking for some free alternatives. :)
Oscar's Multi-Monitor TaskBar from Mediachance solves the first problem. This free tool provide a new taskbar for the second monitor, and ensures that only the windows displayed on each monitor appear on the associated taskbar. This tool also provides buttons to easily move a window between monitors. The only problem with it is that it doesn't really fit in with the XP look and feel!
In order to get a wallpaper to display across multiple monitors, I read that if you choose the 'Tile' setting it will do this. However, as a consequence you need to make sure that your image has the right resolution, as no scaling will be applied. I found a great collection of suitable images from deviantART in their multi display wallpaper category.
Overall I'm impressed with how easy this was to setup. I'm only just working out how best to make use of the two monitors at the moment, but I'm sure that once I get used to it I wont want to go back! :)
posted by Gezz at
10:21 pm
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