Dual Monitor blacks out the second monitor in locked mode

I'm honestly at a complete loss that anyone, and I mean anyone out there, is that bothered by this missing functionality.  I just ran in to this issue today, with a new employee that just started working for us.  She says, "It worked that way at my last job with WindowsXP.  That's what I want on my Windows7 box."  Really?  Are you kidding me??  Total waste of time and adds nothing relevant to this or any persons job responsibilities when their machine is locked & they're away from their computer.

I'm shocked at the number of replies to this & similar posts.  The number of people that are totally bothered by this is unbelievable.  Frankly surprised no one's suggested dumping Windows for MAC, but it looks like just finding the lock feature on a MAC may be just as hard (go figure).

My answer:  give it up & move on to something that actually matters.

You miss the point here, Microsoft made that screen black for no reason. They didn't set it to turn off or just have the same thing as the the other screen's logon background. Out of pure laziness and thoughtless they did this. They didn't do it enhance security as some people claim. They just didn't bother. It doesn't matter that its not a critical update or patch. It's something people want and being the intelligent consumers that they are, they are telling Microsoft about it. If you don't care that this feature is missing, why did you care enough to come into a thread and post about it if it is such a waste of time? It obviously matters to the people posting in this thread, so telling them that it doesn't is not helpful or needed.

Hello KK_KNL,

That function has never been built into any version of Windows. Although there are numerous third party products that will accomplish what you are looking for. Please use your favorite search engine to locate these third party products.

Hope this helps 

Chris.H

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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Thanks Divya,

We have setup of two monitors with setting "Extend your displays", the point is to make the most of these two monitors. The behaviour as you said is normal however the same was working better with Windows XP.

in XP: After locking the screen or at the Logon Screen both the monitors display was there with the wallpapers on. Even we had choice of keeping diff. wallpapers on both screens.

In Win7: After locking the screen or at the logon screen the second monitor is still active and ON. the cursor movement is there however just the change (not desired and not appreciated) is its all blacked out. No wallpaper seen.

Can't this be changed by any reg. settings or third party tools if not in built with windows 7.?

Thanking you again for your reply and looking forward to some way out.

Thanks,

Kunal

Hi Kunal Pathak,

a.      What kind of Display settings have you set it to?

b.     Is it an Extended Display or Duplicate Display setting?

If it is an Extended Display, the Display will not be extended if the primary display is not active.

Extend your displays: This spreads your desktop over both monitors and lets you drag items between the two screens. This is how most people use two monitors, and it's the default setting.

If you have set the second monitor to Duplicate the display, then it will replicate the setting even if you have locked the computer.

Duplicate your displays: This displays the same desktop on both monitors. For a laptop, this is the default setting. This is useful if you're giving a presentation with your laptop connected to a projector or large monitor.

Refer this link for more information:

Work and play better with multiple monitors

Regards,

Divya R – Microsoft Support.

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