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Dual Screen Wallpaper In Vista - May 18, 2008

Last month I posted a tutorial describing how to setup an extended display in Windows Vista for laptops. I received an email asking exactly how I setup a background which extended over from one display onto another. So setting up dual screen wallpapers in Vista is what I’ll be going over in this quick tutorial.

Before picking a background to use, you’ll need to know the total resolution of your two displays. So for example if you have two 1280×800 displays and they are sitting besides each other, the total resolution would be 2560 x 800. You would then have to find an image of that resolution to make it fit correctly. If you’ve already got an image, skip to the setup procedure. If not, a great place to look for large backgrounds is InterfaceLift. This website offers tons of free high resolution wallpapers for just about every setup. Since we are looking for wallpapers for dual displays, head on over to the dual monitors section and select the resolution of your setup to filter the results. Browse through the gallery, pick some wallpapers you like, and save them to your computer.

Setup Dual Screen Walpaper:

1. Right-click on desktop & click Personalize
2. Open the Desktop Background settings
3. Browse to & select the background you want
4. Choose ‘Tile’ under positioning settings

If all goes well, your dual screen wallpaper should span across your first display onto the second!

Some problems you may encounter are if you have different sized resolutions on each of your displays. One solution for that would be to pick an image larger in height and width than the larger of your two displays. Doing so should ensure that the image stretches across your entire viewing area. There are also some applications which will allow further customizations, for example choosing different images for each display. This tutorial covers the simplest method to getting this done without any extra software. We welcome all tips and suggestions so please let us know if you have any other cools tweaks or tips. And as always if you have any problems please leave a comment and someone will assist you!