Dual Monitor with laptop LCD

[Guest]

I am running Vista RC1 and I have dual monitors working - but not the way I
want. I have a Thinkpad T43 with an integrated Intel graphics card. My main
display is the Thinkpad LCD and I have an external LCD as the 2nd monitor. I
want this reversed - like I can do in XP. If I try to make my external LCD
the primary monitor it disables the external monitor. I have to tell Vista
that the monitor is attached and then it will function again as a 2nd
monitor, but I can't get it to work as the primary.

Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

Hi Jon.

I have the same problem on RTM. It seems like Vista does not support
swapping displays like most of the 3th party vendors. I had to install ATI
Catalyst Vista Beta to swap the displays but then I was trapped with the beta
driver with all that brought along! Not nice, I guess the only thing to do is
to wait until your graphics card vender releases a Vista compliant driver.
Or even better, Microsoft implemented the swap display feature in the
display setting dialog box, but I’m not seeing that coming.

Regards.
KjeldT

 

[Richard Urban]

Microsoft includes drivers in the Vista DVD, and on their update web site,
that the device manufacturers supply to them. If the originally supplied
drivers do not support dual monitors it is because the drivers supplied to
Microsoft by the device manufacturer did not include them.

Do not expect Microsoft to enhance, or repair, the drivers supplied by
others.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Hi Richard.

It’s not that dual monitors are not supported, it works fine. And the
provided driver handles display swapping through their own control panel, the
problem is that the vista display settings has disabled the checkbox on witch
you set the main monitor. And I can’t see the reason for that when the vender
control panel has no difficulties setting that property. And if I’m not
wrong XP had the exact same problem. So I’m not asking MS to repair anything
that is not their own, in fact the online help describes how to set your main
monitor through the display settings dialog but not a word about what to do
when the checkbox is disabled. And yes I am an administrator and the dialog
is running elevated, but still.

Regards
KjeldT

 

[Jeff Gaines]

the
problem is that the vista display settings has disabled the checkbox on
witch
you set the main monitor.

Is it disabled on both monitors? I know in XP I can't un-check the current
primary monitor but if I select the secondary monitor I can check that to
swap them.

 

[Guest]

Hi Jeff.

Good point, but yes they are both disabled, the primary one with the
checkbox checked and the secondary one is not selected but still disabled :-(

Regards
KjeldT

 

[David McGown]

Same problem for me too. I have a workaround - my Dell Latitude has a
keyboard shortcut for cycling the LCD/CRT mode. If I cycle through and make
it so that the LCD is off and the external CRT is on, I can then go into
display settings and it automatically sees the external CRT as "primary".
Then I can enable the LCD as the secondary monitor. Kind of messy but it
seems to work. Unfortunately it looks like my video card is too old and ATI
don't plan on providing a Vista driver for it.

The most annoying aspect of this problem is that once I get my monitors set
up correctly, Vista forgets all my settings if I reboot or come out of sleep
mode. So pretty much every day I have to go back into my display settings
and set everything up again, including changing the monitor refresh rate
from 60 to 85Hz. Likewise if I go into sleep mode and then undock the
laptop, when I come out of sleep mode it (correctly) thinks the LCD monitor
is now primary, BUT it (incorrectly) assigns the resolution that I had
previously assigned to my external CRT, so I have to go into display
settings again and set resolution back to something that my LCD can handle.
I would have expected Vista to recognize that my LCD is restricted to
1024x768 and automatically adjust the resolution down accordingly. I have a
feeling that XP had the same problem until I installed the ATI drivers
(versus the one included with XP). What a pity that Vista hasn't improved on
this.

- David

 

[Guest]

Hi David.

Your trick worked out perfectly, why haven’t I thought of that. The laptop
toggle key must be the reason why the checkbox is disabled in the dialog.
I, on the other hand, have no problem getting Vista (and XP) to remember my
settings, actually I’m impressed about the flexibility in connecting and
disconnecting monitors, dual screens and projectors.
I just had that one complaint that your trick took care of for me. Thanks
for replying.

Regards
KjeldT

 

[Guest]

Julie,

I am in the same boat as you. Did you try the fix mention to see if it
keeps you settings or hear of a anwser?

 

[Guest]

Hi Ken, I actually figured it out. Kind of spontaneously... I went to display
settings, advance settings, monitor, to try to switch Identity of the
monitors; to make the side monitor 1 and my laptop 2. I think i had to
install a driver. I'm not sure what happened, but now I'm good and grateful
Before I got to this point, one day, my monitors just switched
spontanously...i'm not kidding. Then of course, another day weeks later, they
switched back...BUT now that I have programmed it, all is well on the monitor
front. I am a happy camper. Hope the same for you!