Tuesday Tip: Managing Dual Monitors

by Tony Rushin

If you have dual monitors, here’s a quick and easy tip (gotta’ love quick and easy).  If you don’t have dual monitors, and you work in a law firm or other professional setting, check out the productivity gains in the University of Utah study cited in The Find Law Legal Technology Blog (by the way, a second monitor only costs $200).

Okay, if you’re still with me you must have dual monitors.  When you press the “Windows + P” keys you get the four simple menu choices shown below:

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My menu came up with “Extend” highlighted because that’s how I’ve set up my dual monitors.  What if I come into work next week, plug my laptop into the docking station and my monitors don’t fire up correctly?   The first thing I would do (after checking plugs, cables and on/off) is press the “Windows + P” key and simply toggle over to “Extend” or click it with the mouse and be on my merry way.  You may notice that the “P” in this shortcut stands for “Projector” – knowing that helps me remember this shortcut.

Note: this only works on Windows 7 (or 8); not XP (btw, if you’re still running XP, the clock is ticking…).

“Windows + P” definitely won’t fix all of your dual monitor issues but it is a quick and easy first step that lets you reset your dual monitors if that’s all you need.  If your issue is something more advanced (like re-setting screen resolutions, troubleshooting colors or contrast, etc.) you’ll need to dive into the Windows menu or the buttons on the monitor – or contact your IT support.

 

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

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Tony Rushin: In his role as VP of sales & marketing, he is responsible for hiring, managing and coaching the sales team and always staying on top of (and meeting) the needs of clients. Under his leadership, the company has steadily grown each year.

Network 1 designs, builds and supports the IT you need to run your business more securely, productively and successfully. Whether you want to outsource all of your IT needs to a reliable, responsive, service-oriented company, or need to supplement the work of your internal IT staff, we will carefully evaluate where you are now, discuss where you want to go and implement and support a plan to get you there with as little interruption as possible.

1 Comment

  1. Tuesday Tip: Windows Logo Key Shortcuts on January 2, 2015 at 5:37 pm

    […] of you who have dual monitors this is a great shortcut.  Tony covered this one last year in his Managing Dual Monitors Tuesday Tip. This shortcut allows you to change your […]

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