Dual monitors, dual wallpapers in Windows XP

[Necromagus]

I recently got myself a free monitor, and I've decided to make a dual monitor setup on my Windows XP laptop. Because I'm running different resolutions, I've been trying to set each monitor its own wallpaper. I've managed to make this workaround work, but there's a small but very annoying problem. The text under my desktop icons now has the desktop's background colours around them, both on the desktop using the desktop items background and the one using the regular wallpaper. Is there any way to get rid of that?

[Sam]

I know I shouldn't really reccomend 4chan, you could ask this question on the /wg/ board.

[Ronan]

I've not got a Windows XP machine to test this on, but any chance this article provides a solution? annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-137

 

Excerpt :-

Windows XP

 

Open System Properties in Control Panel, choose the Advanced tab, and click Settings in the Performance section. Turn on the Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop option, and click Ok.

You can also try MicroAngelo (v5.5 or later), which allows you to change the text color, configure custom icons, and change other aspects of Windows.

Another utility of this type is WindowFX.

[Necromagus]

I tried that, and it didn't work. It also reverted my theme back to the default Windows XP theme and removed my wallpaper.

[Ronan]

Ah, that's a bit of a nuisance! The problem appears to be that by using that workaround it requires the enabling of Active Desktop which consequently disables the functionality of drop-shadows and transparency on icon-labels. Searching a bit doesn't seem to provide many workarounds to this.

 

If you're not requiring Active Destop, an alternative I suppose would be to use a utility for managing multiple monitors. I've always found UltraMon to be pretty well recommended, but that requires purchasing. A nice free alternative I've used before is DisplayFusion. That is if you're fine using another program to control it. :)

[D. V. Devnull]

Necromagus, I'm just curious... What is your graphics chipset on that laptop? :huh:

 

~D. V. "Hmm?" Devnull

[Necromagus]

Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset.

[D. V. Devnull]

Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset.

Shoot... Scratch the idea that I had, which only works with NVidia Graphics because of a utility provided by NVidia themselves. :wall:

 

However, I do wish you luck in finding a solution to your problem. :)

 

~D. V. "Darn, not what I thought it might be..." Devnull