Jump to content

Windows Vista Auxiliary Display HACK on Windows XP


Didanix

Recommended Posts

God that was an awfully long topic. Anyhoo, I got some nice feedback about this in IRC, so I thought what the heck, let's post it!

So the basic idea is to have an external (auxiliary) monitor/display on your laptop (why not on a PC?) and do all sorts of tasks from that when you're too lazy and/or <insert word>.

Asus and some other bigger firms are bringing up laptop models that have this capability integrated, but it only works in Vista. Their auxiliary display is usable even when the laptop is switched off.

This hack only works when the computer is on, but hey, the touch screen makes up for it!

Original author's link is here.

Here's an image of how I ended up doing it:

aux_xp.jpg

Basically you need a Pocket PC (you can get those pretty cheap these days) and a software called SideWindow (by Innobec) which costs about 14 dollars or so, but hey, there's always a free trial. *cough*

After that you can pretty much run anything in it, including those memory hogging widgets, irc clients, media player and whatnot!

Detailed guide in the "Original author's link".

Hope this proved useful and hope you guys enjoyed it!

(this could be useful for hacking *wink*)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just tried this out and it works well. easy to set up and easy to use, though one question i have, with an exteneded dispay are u able to set a wallpaper to individual screens?

Also the only other problem i had is that it doesnt add the display to ATI's Catilist, but i can live with out that ^_^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there's a way to set up different wallpapers on different desktops, but I've never really looked that up. Good to know it works. :)

I think I found a solution for the wallpaper problem, although I didn't test this yet, it looked valid. Take a look at it here.

And yes, duct tape makes it a proof of concept, more or less. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hey thats a nice solution, didanix.

I also saw this hack done with the PSone LCD. though I think yours cost less and is easier overall.

To try and answer your question Im not positive but Hydravision(ATI) has an option like this for dual displays, its some pretty good management software anyways.

http://ati.amd.com/products/Hydravision/index.html

http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q4/multimon/index.x?pg=2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

It appears there might be a solution for Vista SideShow to work on Pocket PC's and Smartphones, but MS isn't really giving much information about it.

It's also possible to write the device driver yourself, maybe I should give it a whack. ;)

EDIT: Just found out there's endless possibilities for SideShow, and some of them have already been implemented. These include G15-keyboard, (PocketPC/Smartphone, I think?), HDTV's and a bunch more. AFAIK there's only "prototype drivers" for these, but that's better than nothing, eh?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hehe, exactly. Same goes for those "picture frame" screens, it's just silly.

It seems MS didn't release the prototype drivers at all, but meh, I'm still going to keep looking if I'd find a PDA/Smartphone driver, since that'd be kinda useful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...