Windows 7 laptop only displays screensaver on attached TV
February 25, 2015 7:46 AM   Subscribe

I've got a laptop in a closet at work. I've connected it to a flatscreen TV in our office lobby, via VGA connection. The intent was to remote into the laptop so I could add new content to display on the monitor. ("welcome" messages to visitors, and so forth) The laptop is set to display to the TV. But all I see on the TV on the PC input is the generic windows screensaver. It won't show the logged in view. Help?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Could it be treating the TV as an extended monitor - ie a second screen? If so I think you need to go into the settings and make it a "mirror" of the laptop display.
posted by crocomancer at 8:05 AM on February 25, 2015


Are you remoting in through RDP? If so, while you are connected, the physical display will show the screensaver or the Ctrl-Alt-Del to login message. I think you'll have to make your changes then go to the closet to physically login and display them on the TV. Use something like Crossloop or GoToMyPC if you want to have the TV mirror your remote session.
posted by IanMorr at 8:19 AM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think IanMorr is correct that the remote rdp session winds up in the background, if you want to connect to the foreground session(whats on the tv) you'll want other software. Although i'd suggest a VNC variant such as http://www.tightvnc.com/
posted by TheAdamist at 8:25 AM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am not a techie, but the first thing that came to mind was to change the settings on the laptop to not have a screen saver.
posted by 724A at 8:42 AM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


If the above don't work, there's usually a function key combination for toggling the display state of the external VGA port. You'll see a screen or square on one of the function keys. So pressing FN+F5 (or whatever the function key actually is) will toggle between mirroring the display, turning the internal display off, extending the display, etc.

Also, if you haven't already done this, you can set the PC to Autologon, and then setup a Startup script that automatically shows your content.
posted by cnc at 10:02 AM on February 25, 2015


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