currently in my XP machine I have one video card with one VGA output. With that VGA output I am using a VGA splitter and connecting two monitors. XP Detects the second monitor and lets me do the usual functions on it. If I go to display properties I can see two monitors labelled "1" and "2".
Now when I run the same setup (different vid card, maybe newer I dont know) Win 7 only detects one monitor. My internet research showed me that it is impossible to have two monitors detected by the OS when using a VGA Splitter. I must either use a video card with two outputs or use some other similar device.
My question is how can XP detect two monitors but Windows 7 cant?
45 Answers
Splitters don't support extended desktop applications. All a Video Splitter does is display the same image on multiple monitors. If you are looking for extended desktop features you probably need a video card with multiple video outputs.
There is a type of VGA y-cable that allows driving two separate monitors from a single card, with a single VGA port, but I've only seen them in Dell branded machines here at work. Likely Dell had to write a special driver for XP to support this functionality, and they haven't ported the driver to Windows 7, and so it's defaulting to standard VGA address-ability, because of performance limitations of their interface, vs the more modern HDMI standard.
I've seen it at work. One computer with a vga splitter connected to two monitors and then extended. I'm trying to so how this happened. I was shocked to see this too. I always thought you needed two video cards or at lease two ports.
1Y Cables allows you to, if the end port (connected to the desktop) is a DVI or HDMI, doesn't matter the other side. VGA to 2 VGA's usually cannot, due to the limited resources, only few driver manufacturers allow you to make it, but it's unusual to see.
1Use usb to vga (female) that was you will be able to extend your monitor with the spitter software provided with the cable. In South Africa it costs R139.00
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