Dual monitors feature in Window XP ?

I was told that Window XP has a feature which allows to use two monitors using just some kind of adapter without installing dual video card. Salesman in local Office store had no idea. Did anyone actualy make it work ?

 

I find that hard to believe. You need hardware to generate video output for your monitors.

 

http://www.digitaltigers.com/sidecar.shtml for laptops

or

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=105&sku=19256 but that will show same image on 2 screens, it won't be independent like with 2 separate outputs.

Maybe somebody else knows, but I think you will be better off buying another card.

 

Sure, you can plug in two monitors with a basic VGA/SVGA Y-splitter cable -- as little as $1.69 plus shipping on Amazon, or try your local Radio Shack. But they will, of course, display the same image. Probably not exactly what you have in mind.

Assuming you want independent images, I agree with dcraig -- you can't pull it off without either a dual video card or two single-output video cards, or their equivalent.

 

I think your windows xp feature was native support of dual monitors on dual head or two cards without needing a specific oe manufacturers software.

 

Multi-monitor support has been a feature of Windows since W98.

 

I built a computer with a new mobo, which has two video outs on it, one VGA and one DVI (Asus A8N-E). I plugged two CRTs into these outputs (using a DVI-VGA adaptor, obviously) and WIN XP automatically gave me a spanned desktop, where I can drag things back and forth between monitors.

Thanks as always to gnome for his tech support services.

My new Dell flat panel just arrived so now I am going to try hooking it up to the DVI output; hopefully my dual monitor setup will still work seamlessly.

 

By whom?

 

shooting from the hip again?

 

If you have two video cards, meaning you can plug in two monitors to your computer then you can go into display properties and it will show two monitors attached.

You click on monitor #2 and there is a click box below that says "extend my desktop to this monitor" and then you will have two monitors that are not cloned but rather one super wide monitor that you can drag windows over too.

I currently use this feature with my laptop and an additional monitor plugged into the VGA port of my laptop.