Dual Monitors In Vista (Extend Your Desktop)

January 29, 2010 – 9:20 AM | Comments

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Home » Hardware, Techie

Dual Monitors In Vista (Extend Your Desktop)

Submitted by Jeff Weisbein on May 20, 2007 – 9:40 AM Comments

Recently I bought a second 19″ wide screen monitor to go along with my current 19″ wide screen monitor. They’re both Acer Monitors. However, one is black and one is silver. I originally had the silver and when I went to buy the second one I couldn’t find the silver one anywhere so I ended up having to get a black one. This is the Monitor: Acer AL1916W Series – Note: Make sure you get one with a DVI video input if you have a video card that can support it.

Anyway, now with the new dual monitor setup I wanted to find a way to extend my desktop to other desktop. By extend my desktop I mean instead of just having an extra monitor and being able to drag things over to it; I wanted to extend my taskbar over to the additional monitor. So I looked in the desktop properties (where you change your resolution, etc.) and it had an option to ‘extend desktop’, so I ticked it. It didn’t work…after tinkering around a bit I gave up with that and went to Google and did some searching. After a bit of searching I stumbled across something called UltraMon. This piece of software is exactly what I wanted. Not only does it allow you to extend your taskbar, but you can do so much more. You can create hotkeys for many different functions such as moving one window to the other monitor without dragging it over, centering the mouse in a particular monitor, launch an application or script, and to disable/enable secondary monitors. The feature I use it for mostly is the Smart Taskbar which extends my taskbar. You can have it extend the taskbar and mirror it (so it has all the same windows/programs on it as the main monitor or you can have it act as another taskbar for totally separate windows/programs – that’s what I do. Talk about more screen real estate.

If you have 2 or more monitors I highly recommend this program.

Note: If you have Vista make sure you download the newest version of UltraMon which is currently in Beta but seems to be stable. I have had no issues with it. Any other Windows OS should be fine with the official stable release.

I’m curious, how do you use your dual (or more) monitor setup? Leave a comment!

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Tags: Dual Monitors, UltraMon, Vista, windows

Joshua
Regular nvidia software does include the extend your desktop software, but does it work with Vista?

besttechie
Right Josh, nVidia does have software to do it (extend the desktop) however, it does not work in Vista.

Jeff
Hello, I'm actually having trouble setting up my dual monitors right now. I was hoping you could help since you've already one it. I have Windows Vista installed, and a NVIDIA GeForce 6200 LE video card, along with an DFI 662-tmg motherboard. OK, so I have two 22" sceptre monitors I'm trying to use, but I can't get windows to recognize the second. I think its because I'm connecting the second through the motherboard instead of the video card. There is only one DVI on the video card. Please advise.

besttechie
Hi Jeff,

Yes, you need to use the video card for both monitors. You can't have one in the video card and one in the motherboard. That just won't work. If you need further assistance I recommend you post on our forums. http://www.besttechie.net/forums/

Jonathan
G'day, I'm trying to setup dual monitors with Vista Home Premium at the moment, and as soon as I try to extend my deskop to the second monitor, both monitors start to flicker and continue with that until I unplug the second one.

The monitors are not identical, they're both plugged in to the same gfx, Radeon x1700SE. I've tried using Vista's built-in dual monitor support as well as the one from the ATI Catalyst Control Center, the same problem occurs, both screens start flashing.

I'd appriciate if someone could post a guide or some support for this issue.

//Jonathan C

smitron
Try reducing your resolution on the primary or both, until they both settle down/accept a common denominator-sort to speak...
-Smitron

besttechie
Hi Jonathan,

I'd recommend you post on our forums in the PC Support section. You're going to have to register first but that's free as is the support. Please check out the forums here: http://www.besttechie.net/forums/

Jeff
Thanks for the advise. I did do you recommended. The answer was to by a dvi to vga converter and then run both through the graphics card as you said.

georgey
i have 4 monitor setup, 2 x 8800 gt asus. 3 19''inch samsung and 1 40 inch lcd tv full hd 1080p. but i cant get the the startbar and or the clock with the icons etc on each screen, i have ultra mon setup and i also have display fusion setup for different wallpaper etc for each monitor... can anyoine help?

Scott
I have a dual set up currently running on Vista. And yes like Jeff said you do need to run both monitor through the video card, and converters are a must.

But my question is: Are there any good programs to bring up both my dock and my taskbar up on both screens? The dock that I am currently using is ObjectDock, which I would recommend for anyone that likes a very clean screen.

Saad
hey,

converters are not a must, provided your video card is a good one. I recently bought an HP machine and I have connected 2 20" monitors with it without a converter.

New monitors come with a Digital slot and a serial slot, I connected one with the digital and other with serial, with the video card.

and it works perfectly fine.
For the dock and taskbar on both screens, I am looking for something like that too, havent found anything as of yet.

Pawel Zinkiewicz
Hey, thanks for the program, works just fine on my two Belinea's & Vista :)

Keith
ok So I have a laptop. Its a Inspiron 1525
and its pretty new. About 5 months old and I wanted to setup another monitor with it so I can have more space for my desktop. It sounds really cool and I just had a few questions. Would having duel monitors fry my "stock" graphics card? Will it be able to transfer vista on both? Can I hook it up using a VGA Cable or do I have to use something different? Please Help! Thanks

Dmitriy Zasyatkin
There is a free utility called "Multimon Taksbar", which is just for having a taskbar on your other montiors: http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

Ron
Great site, and exactly what I was looking for through Google. This page was the first result by the way.
I am currently using a laptop with a VGA 17" OPTIM. I have had no problems setting them up with my Vista Home Premium. My Linux partition is another story I am sure your comment box can't hold. :)
The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L45 with the Intel chipset GM965, and it has the options you have mentioned in your post as well. I am able to output to either monitor, both, and clone the main for presentations. I prefer the extended for more real estate. I found a great windows freeware program called Desktop.exe from this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals...
so I am able to have 8 desktops. great stuff, a nd with the program Dmitriy Zasyatkin suggested I am 100% happy now.
Thanks for this article and the opportunity to find this information.

123
thx! was really helpful, beta version for vista works fine (for now), indeed. Smart Taskbar is very nice!

smitron
As a realtor, I can bring up pictoral listings, and face the secondary monitor toward my prospective clients (in my office) so they can follow along with me, as I scroll throught different residential listings w/photos.
-Ron