Windows 10: How to duplicate icons on desktop for multi-monitor setup?

How do I duplicate icons on desktop for a multi-monitor setup?


I see that the taskbar buttons are duplicated across both my monitors. Now I'd like to do the same with my desktop icons for easy access to applications and folders from my other monitor.

:)

 

How to only duplicate desktop icons on dual monitor setup?

How to only duplicate desktop icons on dual monitor setup?

I know you can duplicate screens but I'm wondering if there is way to only duplicate desktop icons?

 

Desktop icons disappeared with 2nd monitor, Windows 10

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

1. Did the desktop icons disappear from both the displays when the main display was switched?

2. Which built version of Windows are you currently using?

When you setup multiple monitors, you will get options to personalize the display according to your needs, these options are:-

1. Duplicate these displays- Shows the entire desktop on both displays. The second or other monitors mirror the primary monitor.
2. Extend these displays - Stretch the desktop across the two displays. The desktop screen of your PC is extended across all the detected monitors and allows you to have a desktop screen that spans across all monitors.
   

If the display settings are set to Extend these display, all the launched application will be displayed in the monitor which has ‘Make this my main display’ option enabled under the ‘Multiple displays’
settings. The desktop icons will only be displayed on the main display.

You can refer the following article on How
to Setup Multiple Monitors in Microsoft Windows 10 and
Set up dual monitors on Windows 10
for more information.

Reply with the information
to the above questions, in order to assist
you with appropriate troubleshooting steps.

Hope it helps.

Sandeep Kumar M

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

Blurry text on secondary monitor in multi-resolution, multi-DPI setup


This is probably the most painful issue I have with Windows 10 right now (and likely previous versions as well, but I didn't have a multi-monitor setup back then).

The monitors I have are as follows:

1. 3840x2160 (4K UHD) monitor with preferred DPI: 144 (150%)
2. 1920x1080 (Full HD) monitor with preferred DPI: 96 (100%)

Whenever one of these monitors are set as primary, all desktop applications displayed on the secondary monitor (doesn't matter which) has blurry text. Exceptions are the Windows Store Apps like Windows Store and Microsoft Edge, along with the Taskbar/Start Menu, the Taskbar/Start Menu settings screen, the Taskbar context menu, and the desktop context menu which passes the DPI test with flying colours, with crispy text on both monitors (occasionally a DPI switch bug gets in, but I can mostly ignore that). The problem is, as you can probably guess, is that >99% of the applications I use aren't Windows Store Apps.

Here are some screenshots. The "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" text is what the text should look like while the Visual Studio 2015 text is an example of the text most desktop apps get. The blurry image is what happens when the UHD monitor is not the primary monitor.
Attachment 48493Attachment 48494
Note: Both of these screenshots came from the 150% DPI monitor so it's best viewed at that (144) DPI level. The 96 DPI monitor is similarly affected.

Things I've already tried:

• Reinstall the graphics driver (this was unhelpfully given by a Microsoft Support Engineer). Did this multiple times in fact for unrelated reasons.
• Reinstall Windows 10 (through Reset This PC recovery option). I did this for also unrelated reasons but it definitely doesn't fix this issue.
• Use the XP Explorer "fix". Merely worsens the problem.
• Adjusting ClearType options. Alleviates the issue a bit but see next point.
• Disabling ClearType on the affected monitor. The text obviously sharpens, but it's painful to read and a close inspection of the text reveals the issue isn't solved at all, only mitigated slightly.
• Replacing the video card. I swapped this in with my older GTX 560 Ti but it's obvious the problem remains. Both it and my current card are NVIDIAs though, so it's vaguely possible the drivers or the cards themselves are the cause. I don't have an ATI/AMD card (that still works, at least) to test the setup and every Intel iGPU I have either has only one monitor output or is incapable of handling UHD resolutions.

Things I won't try:

• Setting both monitors' DPI to 96. Text would become microscopic considering the UHD monitor's actual size.
• Use the text resizing feature instead. I'm going take a wild guess that this is not monitor-specific and would cause everything on the HD monitor to be far too large to the point that I'd rather unplug it.

Does anyone have a multi-resolution, multi-DPI, multi-monitor setup with or without this issue? The text is painful to read on whichever is the secondary monitor right now, and is extremely apparent whenever the background is dark.