6 ways to improve your dual monitor setup

Whether working or playing hard, multiple monitors can give you more space to get things done. You can write documents on one screen while referring to web pages on the other or games on one screen while chatting in Discord on the other. But don’t just plug in a second monitor and call it a day; here are a few tips to get that multi-monitor setup working for you.

Make the screen match.

If your monitor is of the same model, you can probably skip this part once you plug both in; Windows will automatically extend your monitor horizontally. Just adjust the stand of each monitor so they align perfectly and you’re out of the race.

However, if you have two different monitors, you may need to do a bit more work to get them to play well with each other. For example, maybe you’re plugging your laptop into an external monitor and using them side by side, or maybe you have a 4K monitor next to a 1080p display. That will produce some weird behaviors, but they are easy to fix: right-click on the desktop and select Display settings.
In the Select and rearrange screens section, you can click and drag the rectangles around so that they match the orientation of your desktop screen if one is slightly lower than the other. Instead of jumping up/down, moving the pointer to the left will appear in the same place. You may have to do a little trial and error to get them to line up properly.

Scroll down to the Scale and layout section, and you can adjust the resolution of each monitor and the aspect ratio of the screen. So if one monitor is 4K and the other is 1080p, you can set each monitor to its native resolution but scale it up on the higher resolution screen so that each of your windows appears the same size on each screen.

If you want to go even further, you can use each monitor’s built-in settings to adjust brightness and color to make them match as closely as possible. (An app like ScreenBright can make this a bit easier if your monitor supports software controls.) Once you’re done adjusting all of these settings, your monitors will fit together much more tightly, making it easier and more pleasant to move windows between them.

Tweak your taskbar

By default, Windows 10 expands your taskbar to both monitors, which can be handy, although you can customize it a bit more to your liking. Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings. There are many useful options here, but you’ll see what we’re interested in if you scroll down to the Multi-Screen section.

The first switch removes the taskbar from your secondary monitor. That is how I choose to use multiple monitors, as it puts all my shortcuts in one place.

However, suppose you choose to keep it expanded on both monitors. In that case, you can decide where you want the individual icons to appear: on both monitors, on the main taskbar, and the taskbar where the window of the open application or only on the application’s activity screen. You can also choose if you want the taskbar buttons to be labeled, Windows XP style.

Looking for super-wide wallpapers

While fancy wallpapers won’t boost your productivity, they’re one of the coolest parts of having multiple monitors, so we had to include it here. While most wallpaper sites will have multi-monitor options, a few specialize in ultra-wide wallpapers, including Dual Screen Wallpaper, WallpaperFusion, and subreddits like /r/multiwall.

Once you have a wallpaper (or collection) you like, right-click on the desktop and select Personalize. Browse to the image or folder in question and select Span to fill the space on all your screens.

Study your keyboard shortcuts

The beauty of multiple monitors, especially when compared to ultrawide monitors around the world, is the ability to “attach” windows to the edges of each monitor, making it easy to view tons of windows simultaneously. While you can always drag your windows around and resize them with your mouse, it’s very difficult and time-consuming. That’s why Windows 10 has a few keyboard shortcuts that can help, including:

These shortcuts also work when you only have one screen, but the more screens you add, the more useful they become.

The pointer wanders!

While triple monitors allow you to extend the game across all of your monitors using Nvidia Surround or AMD Eyefinity settings, dual monitors don’t perform well in ultra-wide gaming because your crosshairs will be right on the screen. However, you can play the game on one monitor while having the tutorial window, chat window, or GPU screen on the other, which is quite useful.

Most games can work this way without problems, but you may find that in some cases, your cursor may “drift” to another screen while you’re still in the gameplay. I’ve had this happen with many titles, including The Witcher, Doom, and Metro: Last Light.

Thankfully, a geeky developer fixed this with a tool called Cursor Lock, and in my experience, it works great. Start the program, tick the Open Program box, and then enter the path to the game’s EXE file. Starting the game from that shortcut will create a new shortcut for you; your cursor will stay “locked” to the game window unless you Alt + Tab out of it.

If that doesn’t work, the game in question may need a few more options; you can learn about Coder Lock’s video tutorial.

Do more with DisplayFusion

If, after all that, you still want more, a third-party tool called DisplayFusion is designed with multiple monitors in mind. With DisplayFusion running in the system tray, you can have more control over your wallpaper, create custom shortcuts, align windows to the edges of any monitor, or dim the display automatically works so you don’t get distracted.

Seriously, this program has a lot of useful options, so download the free version to try it out for yourself. Its features are a bit more limited than the paid version, but if you like what you see, you can buy a license for $30.