Dual Monitor blacks out the second monitor in locked mode

Anonymous
2010-06-25T15:36:04+00:00

Hi There,

We work in support environment and use dual monitors setup. WIN7 heard to have very good support for such setup and easy to use functionalities. However at some point something which was great has gone troubled.

We can use both the monitors while working on it however just the time its locked it blacks out the second monitor background and screensavers set if any. I tried looking for any config changes but in vain. Looking out for answer to this here.

Thanking you in advance.

Kunal Pathak

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2010-10-02T20:28:13+00:00

There is no built in way to change this functionality. **When locked, one screen will be black.**There may be some 3rd party software that may do this however it would not be supported by  Microsoft.

Matthew Arkin - Windows Answers Moderator - Windows Desktop Experience MVP - http://twitter.com/Microsoft\_Cares

This forum post is my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or view of Microsoft, its employees, or other MVPs.

Need to send me an email? Click my Name, my email is on my profile page.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-11T18:18:46+00:00

    The original request was posted in June of 2010, It's been 6 years!!! This was a year before development on the new multi-platform development was begun, and 4 years before the media announcement made by Myerson regarding Windows 10 on Sept 30 2014. You'd think with all the attention this thread gets and all the time that has gone by, that someone at Microsoft would have taken an ounce of initiative and implemented something even slightly more intelligent as a solution!?!?!? I guess we shall see....Anybody tried out Windows 10 yet?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-11T17:03:53+00:00

    I would love to have the lock screen image duplicated on my secondary screen.

    So much is invested in data mining in the atempt to retrieve social sentiment about products, brands, etc...  Microsoft has this forum and here consumers are explicitly expressing their sentiment, in this post, about a feature that could improve their satisfaction. Why not enabling windows 10 do that in future updates or patches? If there is a way to tweak registry why not teach us that?

    Lets focus on the main question here: How to (or when will happen). Nobody asked opinions about having this feature on Windows or not. If you think it is a waste, don' t waste time here preaching about YOUR OPINION.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-20T10:28:43+00:00

    HI

    the only way I know this can be done is to configure your multiple screens as one.

    this can be achived by using the drivers related to your graphics card.

    Nvidia use the nvidia surround tool

    AMD use the catalyst drivers and you set up an eyefinity display

    Intel you configure a collage display

    once this is done your lock screen appears on all displays

    hope this helps

    Ian Noble

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-18T13:32:07+00:00

    It would be great if MS could fix this... In the mean time the following AutoIT script will change monitor to "Clone" mode before locking the screen, and then back to Extended upon logging back in again. It goes a little way towards acheiving the desired effect.

    It can be improved, to e.g. save the location of all the windows before changing to Clone mode. (atm all windows stack up on the primary monitor). It's not at all ideal, just a fugly workaround a bug that never should have been introduced...

    The "Black" screen was especially irksome for me because I leave the gamma ramp inverted (With PowerStrip) so those extra monitor black screens becomes bright white.

    This script disables the Win-L Shortcut, and instead used Win-K (It does not look easily possible to override built-in shortcuts with AutoIt on Windows 7)

    Luke.

    LockScreen - MultiMonitor LockScreen Hack - Credit to the respective authors!

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