My work laptop is a Dell and that's how I use two monitors. There is another model from the same year that others have though (thank goodness it's not me) that only supports video either on the laptop screen or to an external monitor so I think it will depend on his model.


>FWIW your Dell laptop probably alread has multiple monitor support through the NVidia controller. Just plug a monitor into the VGA port, right-click on screen and pick NVidia and then go to change display configuration and pick configure monitors separately. The relationship of the two screens (one over the other, side by side etc) gets set in the regular windows screen properties on the same page where you set monitor resolution and you have to do that each time.
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>Give it a try. I think it works on pretty much every Dell laptop I've seen in the last four or five years.
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>>>>>>>Looks neat....
>>>>>>>http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2009/02/20/a-new-look-for-visual-studio-2010.aspx
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This is going to give me my excuse to add a second monitor ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>>There's a pretty good excuse even with 2008 - all of the other windows (Solution Explorer, Class View, debbuger windows, etc) can be undocked and used outside the main screen.
>>>>
>>>>Good point.
>>>>
>>>>Can anyone offer a nickel overview of what is needed for a two monitor setup? I think a special video card or maybe a second video card is needed and that's all. I know there is a configuration dialog in Windows but that's probably duck soup once the hardware is in place.
>>>
>>>Hi,
>>>I'm just use it with a Dell laptop. Just plugged another monitor in the back. There's an option somewhere in the Dell setup to either send the same output to both monitors or to treat them seperately.
>>>
>>>Haven't looked at doing in on a desktop for a while but the safest way is to choose a dual port video card that will handle both monitors.. Next best is, I think, two identical cards. With different cards I guess it depends on the cards. Someone else probably knows more about this than me. But I know I'd find it really hard to go back to just one monitor. Here's what I want http://www.cinemassivedisplays.com/spectrum.php (someone posted this here a while ago......)
>>
>>Yeah, I remember that. Lust, lust, lust. I would need additional desks, too, though ;-)
>>
>>Thanks for the info. Dual port video card sounds like the way to go. I may not do this right away (as much time as I am spending debugging, LOL) but bet it happens at some point.