Dual View Notebook

By Author: Aaron Webber
Total Articles: 26
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However, I have an old laptop with a perfectly good display going to waste in my basement. The laptop itself is almost useless—the keyboard is flaky, the mouse buttons don't work, and the hard drive is barely large enough to install Windows XP. I found a way to turn that laptop into a second external monitor though, and it didn't require any extra hardware.

As a laptop user, you probably know that you can connect an external monitor to the video connector on your laptop and switch the display from the laptop's small LCD to the larger external monitor. In this situation, you see the same image on both the laptop's LCD and the external monitor. However, if you're running Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home on your laptop and have a supported video adapter and a recent video adapter driver installed, when you connect an external monitor to your laptop, you can configure a multiple monitor environment using the DualView feature. You can then extend your desktop across two monitors, so that you can surf the Internet on one monitor while you take notes in Word on the other monitor.

Activating the DualView ...
... feature
If you have a video adapter with built-in DualView functionality and a video adapter driver that can access the feature, activating Windows XP's DualView feature is a snap. To begin, you should shut down your laptop and make sure the external monitor is turned off. Then connect the monitor to the video connector on your laptop.

Once you have Windows XP up and running again, turn on the external monitor. If your laptop is like most, you'll have a special hotkey keystroke combination that will allow you to switch between the individual monitors as well as activate both monitors at the same time. You should switch the setting such that only the laptop monitor is activated. Doing so will ensure that the second monitor is properly configured.

Then, access the Display Properties dialog box by right-clicking the desktop and selecting the Properties command. Next, select the Settings tab. When you do, your dialog box should look similar to the one shown in Figure A.

To continue, select the second monitor icon in the graphic. When you see that the Extend My Windows Desktop Onto This Monitor check box is enabled, select it, as shown in Figure B. At this point, if you hover your mouse over the monitor graphics, you'll see that number 1 is listed as the Primary Display and number 2 is listed as the Secondary Display with a set of numbers in parentheses.

For example, with a screen resolution of 800 by 600, the coordinates would be (800,0). This set of coordinates indicates at what location the second monitor icon starts. If you wish, you can click and drag either monitor icon to any position. When you're finished, click Apply. As soon as you do, your second monitor will come to life.

Depending on how you positioned the monitor icons, you may want to make sure that they correctly represent your actual monitor's physical positions. To investigate, click the Identify button at the bottom of the dialog box. You'll then see large number appear on each monitor icon showing which monitor corresponds with each icon.

To complete the DualView configuration, just click OK to close the Display Properties dialog box. You can then begin using the two monitors to spread out your work. Read more Notebook Review, News & Guide