Windows Display Settings - Duplicate or Extend, Orientation, Main Display

Sometimes when using multiple monitors you may need to edit your display settings:

1. Right click on your desktop (any area on the desktop that is not a link/button etc.)

2. Select Display settings 

From here you can make many changes to display based settings, but chances are you are looking to do one of the following:

Duplicate Displays:

Duplicating displays will make each monitor display the same screen. What you see on one screen will be the same on the others. To do so, navigate to display settings, scroll down to "Multiple Displays" and then select "duplicate these displays".

Extend Displays:

Extending your displays will allow each monitor to have its own separate screen. To do so, navigate to display settings, scroll down to "Multiple Displays" and then select "extend these displays".

Based upon the orientation of the monitors in display settings, you can then drag windows between the monitors. For example, in the orientation displayed above you could drag something on monitor 2 to the right, and it would move to monitor 1. It is important to note that the orientation in windows settings will determine how the monitors will behave. Meaning for example, if physically monitor 2 was to the right of monitor 1, until the settings are changed you will still need to drag to the right. This is where editing the orientation comes in. 

Edit Monitor Orientation:

To do this, simply drag the window representing the monitor in display settings to its desired location, and then hit apply. If you are not sure which monitor is which, you can hit identify and the corresponding number will display on the monitor's screen:

Set Main Display:

This is the screen where the start button, the default location of the desktop icons, and other controls are located. You can make any monitor in your configuration the “Main display”.

Select the monitor you want to make the Main display (click on monitor in settings, monitor windows will turn blue when selected) and then scroll down a bit to find this checkbox and select it and then :