Step-By-Step: Double Your Screen Space

Instead of struggling with tiling or overlapping windows on a single monitor, why not hook up a second monitor and extend your Windows desktop so you can run multiple applications on separate screens? This would allow you to do research on the Internet (or to check your e-mail) on one screen while typing in a word processor or using other applications on another. Or you could watch a DVD movie full-screen on one monitor while using other applications on the other. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000, and XP all support multiple monitors. You could plug a second graphics card into your PC, but since most computers use the AGP slot for the primary graphics card, you would need to find a PCI graphics card. Those cards are no longer common, don't offer the performance of AGP cards, and require another add-in slot. We recommend that you instead purchase an AGP card specifically designed with ports to handle multiple monitors. Such cards cost about the same as a standard graphics card, and they offer features such as direct digital outputs for flat-screen LCD monitors, the ability to hook up a television for video display, and software that lets you save your favorite desktop schemes.

Though we don't cover this alternative here, if you'd rather install a second graphics card, you'll find extensive information on the subject by searching for "multiple monitors" in Windows Help.

You'll also need a second monitor, of course. Depending on your budget, it can be large or small, a CRT or an LCD.