Can dual monitors work independently?

AndyPix

What you are wanting is not possible without 3rd party software.


Just play with it as it is, you will soon get used to it - it takes fractions of a second to slide your stuff to whatever location you want it.


Im using same setup here, my left monitor is where i "park" my email program, and my right is where the internet lives.
Any other stuff i open over those just gets moved to where it is convenient at the time.


ie , if i want to open excel and refer to an email while using it , then excel gets parked on the right screen.
What makes it a bit smoother is the fact that you can quickly "snap" programs to the full screen by just dragging it to the very top of whichever display you want it on

rmg1

I'm using 3 screens (1 laptop screen and a monitor on either side) for work. Yes, I'm just greedy for screen real-estate.
As AndyPix says, everything seems to remember where I last left it.
However, the laptop is on a docking station with one monitor being driven by VGA and the other by displayport which seems to help.

It makes it a little awkward when I undock/dock the laptop as, even when I dock the laptop, everything stays on the laptop screen until I move it to the correct screen again.

DoaM

AndyPix wrote: »

(perhaps you are being cofused because there are 2 task bars, one on each screen - which never used to be the case in W7 )

Almost certainly the case ... it's something that was introduced in W10, but possibly causes more confusion than the help it provides. There's an option to turn this off.

bingo_bango

rmg1 wrote: »

I'm using 3 screens (1 laptop screen and a monitor on either side) for work. Yes, I'm just greedy for screen real-estate.
As AndyPix says, everything seems to remember where I last left it.
However, the laptop is on a docking station with one monitor being driven by VGA and the other by displayport which seems to help.

It makes it a little awkward when I undock/dock the laptop as, even when I dock the laptop, everything stays on the laptop screen until I move it to the correct screen again.

You just made me look at my setup. Same premise - 3 screens including laptop. I have one Display Port and one VGA conection from the docking station.
If I undock and then put it back everything moves back to where it was on the extended display screens. Running Win 10 and it does it by default on mine.

guzzbuzz

AndyPix wrote: »

What you are wanting is not possible without 3rd party software.


Just play with it as it is, you will soon get used to it - it takes fractions of a second to slide your stuff to whatever location you want it.


Im using same setup here, my left monitor is where i "park" my email program, and my right is where the internet lives.
Any other stuff i open over those just gets moved to where it is convenient at the time.


ie , if i want to open excel and refer to an email while using it , then excel gets parked on the right screen.
What makes it a bit smoother is the fact that you can quickly "snap" programs to the full screen by just dragging it to the very top of whichever display you want it on

Thanks

Yeah i guess i will just have to get used to opening everything on the left screen (monitor 1) and then dragging it over to the right (monitor 2)

Or just splitting apps between each monitor and getting used to running them on each monitor

Tad annoying i think but i guess there is no other way (unless i go 3rd party software)

after reading this article:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start-winpc/opening-programs-on-second-monitor-not-main/ebc1d56d-8b75-47d4-91b8-64ea71cc206a?auth=1

They guy who seemed to have the same problem said this:

"After the Anniversary edition I have had no issue with it opening on multiple monitors. So they must have included the fix in there."

Any idea what the anniversary edition is?

DoaM wrote: »

Almost certainly the case ... it's something that was introduced in W10, but possibly causes more confusion than the help it provides. There's an option to turn this off.

This is my first every dual monitor set up, so i didn't really find it confusing that there was a task bar on monitor 2. It just surprises me that in this day and age, you can't click a program on the 2nd monitor and it always opens there and vice versa for monitor 1.

Doesn't seem like a difficult thing for microsoft to introduce. Perhaps they are doing this to force people to buy more than one desktop and not wanting people just to buy 2 screens and there for have a cheaper way of "creating" two desktops?

AndyPix

"creating two desktops" ??


What is it that you actually trying to achieve ??


I think the fact thet you have never used 2 monitors before had you expecting things to work in a different way than they do - but like i said, just use it for a bit and you will see that the functionality is fine as it is..


I would hate it if it worked in the way you are suggesting.


Maybe those of us who are used to this set up just find it normal because like i said, there didnt used to be a tesk bar on screen 2 - it was only introduced in windows 10 as a convenience feature, so you dont have to move your mouse back over to screen 1 to open a new program.


Anniversary edition is just an update to windows 10 . You most likely have that yourself by now.


If you open a command prompt and type


winver


and press enter, it will tell you what version number you are using

Frozen_up_north

AndyPix wrote: »

(perhaps you are being cofused because there are 2 task bars, one on each screen - which never used to be the case in W7 )

I’ve run two screens on various computers under XP, Win 7 and currently Win 10. Whether you have 1 or 2 task bars (ie one on each screen) is a config setting, I have only 1 task bar with my current Win 10 machine.

Being able to run 2 monitors with an extended desktop has been around for years, back to the days of 1 x VGA and 1 x DVI, although running 1 analogue and 1 digital wasn’t a good idea as the screens didn’t match... using 2 x digital is great.

guzzbuzz

AndyPix wrote: »

"creating two desktops" ??


What is it that you actually trying to achieve ??


I think the fact thet you have never used 2 monitors before had you expecting things to work in a different way than they do - but like i said, just use it for a bit and you will see that the functionality is fine as it is..


I would hate it if it worked in the way you are suggesting.


Maybe those of us who are used to this set up just find it normal because like i said, there didnt used to be a tesk bar on screen 2 - it was only introduced in windows 10 as a convenience feature, so you dont have to move your mouse back over to screen 1 to open a new program.


Anniversary edition is just an update to windows 10 . You most likely have that yourself by now.


If you open a command prompt and type


winver


and press enter, it will tell you what version number you are using

Yeah i guess im just not used to how dual monitors should function and definitely expected something else.

What im trying to achieve, for example, is to have programs like chrome and malwarebytes, with short cuts on both monitors and then for them to open on whatever monitor i click them on

Right now, it seems like i can either drag a shortcut icon across, but i will lose it on one monitor OR create two short cuts but they still won't open on which monitor i click them on (they will just open on whichever monitor i last used/shut them down on)

So now im limited to STARTING chrome on only one monitor and dragging it over even though i have the shortcut on both monitors.

But after all the help it seems like this is just not possible which i understand now.

I typed WINVER into Command prompt and it says version is 1709 (OS build 16299.248) is it all up to date?
I've only just got this PC yesterday and set it up btw

AndyPix

Yes - that's anniversary edition.


Dont worry, you will get used to it


It's always interesting to me how fresh eyes see things.
It makes you think about stuff you just accept as given

Debbie_Savard

Try pinning the app to the taskbar in the 2nd display, I was told that makes the app open on the 2nd display when clicked on.