How to use a laptop as a second monitor – News Block

It’s a very cool thing to use your laptop as a monitor. If you also want to do that, you are in the right place. Hey guys, I’m Abdur Rahman and in this article I’m going to show you how to use your laptop as a second monitor for your main computer. Whether your primary computer is a laptop or desktop.

It may seem impossible to use a laptop as a monitor. But, if you know how to do it, you can do your job in a minute. So, follow this step by step tutorial.

Before starting

In this post, I am going to explain the process on a Windows 10 laptop. In this case, my laptop and desktop are running Windows 10.

However, this process will work for Windows 8 and Windows 11 operating systems as well. But if you are still using a Windows 7 computer, you should upgrade to Windows 8 or the latest version of Windows.

How to use a laptop as a monitor

The conventional way to connect a monitor with a computer is with a cable. But, we cannot use a cable to connect our laptop to the computer that uses it. Because laptop display ports are designed to connect with a standalone monitor.

It means that if you try to connect your laptop to your main computer using an HDMI cable, it won’t work. because those ports are only designed to output video signals and do not support input. However, some laptops support input of video signals through the display port. But, they are not standard.

For this reason, we need to use a wireless connection to connect our laptop to the main computer. To connect your laptop to your computer, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Preparing your laptop

To use our laptop as a monitor, we must prepare it to accept projection on its screen. To enable laptop screen projection, follow the process below:

1. Go to the Windows start menu and look for “projection settings” and click on the first result.

2. Now, you can see a configuration window on your screen titled “Project to this PC“. From there, select the first dropdown for “available everywhere“, and then select the second dropdown”Ask to project to this PC” to “Every time a connection is requested“.

After configuring those two dropdowns,
our laptop is ready to use as a second monitor. However, you can enable the PIN requirement for the connection, from the last dropdown menu. Lastly, you can enable the toggle button to save battery life by making your laptop discoverable only when it’s plugged into a power source.

Step 2 – Connect the laptop to your main computer

Now we need to go to our main computer and make a connection request to our laptop for projection. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. On your main computer, right-click on the desktop and select “Screen settings“.

2. In the display settings window, scroll down and click “Connect a wireless display“.

3. A panel will appear on the right side of your screen, from there
   find your laptop name and click on it.

After clicking on the name of your laptop, the connection may take a while. Now when you show the connection request message on your screen, it’s time to accept the connection from your laptop.

Step 3: Accept the connection on your laptop

The connection from your main computer to the laptop will not be successfully established until you accept the connection from your laptop. To do that, follow the steps below:

1. Click the notification icon at the bottom corner of your laptop screen to open the notification panel.

2. In that notification panel, you can see a notification that says “{Your computer} is trying to project:“, in this notification, select the connection type from the dropdown menu and click on “OK” button.

After clicking the OK button, it will start working to project your desktop screen onto it. When the connection process is complete, you can see your laptop working as a second monitor to your main computer.

However, you can still use your laptop as a separate computer. To do that, move your laptop mouse pointer to the bottom of your laptop screen and wait for a moment. Now you can see your laptop taskbar appearing from the bottom and your laptop by projecting the computer screen using the connection app.

Configure monitors for use

Finally, we successfully connected our laptop to our main computer. Now we need to configure the display settings to use our laptop as a second monitor. Because when we initially connect our computer with an external display, it mirrors our main computer’s screen.

To set up the laptop as a second monitor, follow the steps below:

1. Eight clicks on your desktop and select “Screen settings“.

2. In the display settings window, scroll down to the
   multiple screens section.

3. Click the multi-view dropdown menu and select “Extend desktop to this screen“.

Now your laptop will work as a second extended monitor. Finally, at the top of the display settings, you can rearrange the physical location of your monitor.

Finish line of using a laptop as a secondary monitor

Connecting a laptop with a computer as a secondary monitor is a bit of a tricky task. Because we can’t use a cable to connect those two devices. However, Windows supports wireless screen projection, and by using this technology, we can connect our laptop without any third-party software.

Friends this was a complete guide on
How to use a laptop as a monitor. I hope this guide will help you with the methods. If you like this article, please share it with your friends and tell them about it…