Hey, I have a 22 inch screen monitor that I want to hook up to my dell laptop with a x1400 video card so it will be in a dual monitor setup. I want 2 desktops shown on each screen, not just a blank screen on the second monitor, so each screen will have the start menu and what not. Is that possible to do with just one video card? Also the original computer that the 22 inch monitor was hooked up to has an 8800 gts. Is there some way to utilize that video card for the display of the second monitor even though I want to use my laptop?

Also I'm running windows vista on both computers.

You want the start menu on both screens? So, do you want both screens to show the same thing, or do you mean you want to double your desktop space and just have the start menu on both sides? I don't know if there is a way to get the start menu on both sides and have the computer double your desktop space. Can you clarify what you want exactly?

Having double desktop space is easy if you don't care about having the start menu on both sides. Right click on the desktop, go to properties->settings. If you have the second monitor plugged in, you should be able to click on that second monitor in the little picture that pops up there. Select "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor." If you just want each monitor to mirror the same thing, play around with the settings in Advanced.

To get two start menus, you could run VMware and place it full-screen on the second monitor, though somehow I doubt this is what you're after.

And oh darn... you're using Vista. Same principle holds true... the text might be slightly different.

Yes I want double desktop space but I don't want it mirrored. So I can open different applications on each monitor, both which I wan't to have a start menu.

Right now I hooked up the monitor and it just gives me extra space, with no start menu. So i can open apps on my laptop and drag them over to the second monitor so they can sit there. And for some reason, I have a 17 inch screen on the laptop, and on the 22 inch monitor, it will only show 17 inches of the background image with a thick black outline covering the rest of the space. But if i drag an application across monitors, it will correctly display the app window over that thick outline(so the full 22 inches is being utilized), so it looks a little weird without having a background image over the whole space of the second monitor.

You can use Ultramon.

It will give you a second task bar (but not a second start menu).

nVidia (probably ATI too) drivers only support clone screen, horizontal/vertical spawn (strech image on both screen) and dualview (what most use, both monitors are independent, but only one taskbar).

If you want the two monitors to behave like two completely different computers I would also suggest dualview with VMWares booted fullscreen on the second monitor in a virtual WinXP.

Quote: Original post by 3fast3furious
And for some reason, I have a 17 inch screen on the laptop, and on the 22 inch monitor, it will only show 17 inches of the background image with a thick black outline covering the rest of the space. But if i drag an application across monitors, it will correctly display the app window over that thick outline(so the full 22 inches is being utilized), so it looks a little weird without having a background image over the whole space of the second monitor.

That happens when you have a dual-head setup like you do and the two monitors are in different resolutions. I guess the video driver or whatever doesn't create a second image in memory that is scaled to a larger display. It just uses the same image as the smaller monitor, only since the bigger monitor has more resolution, the same number of pixels takes up less physical space.

You could set the bigger monitor to the same resolution as the smaller one, and that effect should go away. Though, you wouldn't really be taking advantage of the larger screen that way. I get around this issue by just setting the background color to something that looks nice with the image.

Quote: Original post by leandro81
You can use Ultramon.

It will give you a second task bar (but not a second start menu).

Hm, I'm use AWM and it's give me task bar and start menu too. Read this article