Trying to get project screen to give copy of laptop screen rather than screen extension

Ewan:

I have a similar problem with my Inspiron 8200 with a GEForce4 video card. The "clone" option which was available before, disappeared from the advanced settings dialog at some time after selecting it. I had used the feature last year, but have been unable to find it since. PowerPoint slide shows run fine on the second (projector) screen, but I can't clone the primary screen any more.

The wallpaper is displayed from the projector, but no icons nor windows. If, however, I open an application in a less-than full size window, I can slide the window to the right, off of the primary (laptop) screen and on to the projector screen.

I don't know (yet) how to rectify the situation. I deleted the existing drivers using control panel and installed the latest driver. The "clone" option then appeared, but when I selected it and clicked OK, it made no difference. When I went back to the same dialog, the clone option had again disappeared.

Tomorrow I am going to upgrade the video bios and see if that helps. If it does I'll post the result.

Phil

Phil

Thanks for this. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Ewan

Ewan:

I flashed the video bios and reloaded the latest driver, but still couldn't get the clone feature. With the windows desktop extended to a projector (display 2) I could open a window on the laptop's screen and then slide it to the right onto the projector's screen, but I couldn't get a clone feature.

I then thought that perhaps the options to extend or clone were mutually exclusive, so I unchecked the extend option in the screen properties, settings tab, display 2 dialog box, then went to the advanced dialog, monitor tab and the clone option had returned! I clicked the checkbox and OK button then DID NOT extend the desktop and the full portable screen was displayed on the projector, complete with cursor ands icons. This proved to me that the options for an extended desktop or cloned screen could not operate together. The confusing part is that the display properties, settings dialog describes the display 2 (projector) as not being active, though the image of the portable's screen is there, large as life on the wall.

The clone will not work with programs such as PowerPoint, which require the desktop to be extended to display 2 in order to run slide shows on a projector when the presenter view is desired on the laptop. It does work if you run the slide show on the laptop's screen.

This may be the way the wizards at Microsoft wanted it to work, but it sure isn't intuitive!

Phil