How can you show the login prompt on both monitors when logging in with Windows 7?

How can you show the login prompt on both monitors when logging in with Windows 7?

I have a desktop machine with an ATI VGA/DVI AGP card driving two monitors. Everything is peachy until I connect to this machine via a remote desktop session. After a remote desktop session, I return to my desk to find one monitor completely off, and the second monitor shows a black screen and will display the cursor if I move my mouse over there.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 378

Total answers/comments: 2

Comments display order:

bert [Entry]

"I don't think that this is specific to Win7, I have had similar multi-monitor issues with XP, Vista and Win7, and with both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards.

The problem is that it does matter which monitor is labelled #1. Switching the 'Primary' monitor setting in the display settings works fine most of the time, but as you can see it causes problems in some situations.

Windows assigns the first monitor that it detects as display #1 - but this can't be changed in Windows display settings (changing the primary monitor does not change which display is labelled #1).

The solution then, is to get Windows to re-detect your displays in the correct order:

Unplug your second monitor
Uninstall the display drivers
Restart
Re-install the display drivers
Restart and log into Windows
Now plug your second monitor back in

This will ensure that your main monitor is detected as display #1

PS. I think that the ATI display driver control panel may actually have an option to let you change which monitor is labelled #1."

bert [Entry]

"Set your monitors to clone mode. Unfortunately, this results in duplicating the video all the time :)

Try setting your other monitor as the primary in Windows. Failing that, switch up your BIOS detection setting."