3. Management

Once you have the software installed and all your monitors attached you need a way to manage everything. You can use the default Windows display properties dialog box for all the basics, but if you would like to get a little more advanced, you can use the display settings tool that comes with the product. There aren't many differences between the tool and Windows display properties dialog box, but with the former you can configure things with a little more refinement.

Also, while installing the drivers and software, you are provided with a tool to manage the VTBook card itself. It shows the card's temperature, what displays are connected to it and at what resolutions, the memory clock speed and whether or not 2D and 3D acceleration are enabled. There are also options to force video output to one monitor or another and to change the memory speed. The tool also has a simple benchmark capability that lets you see whether or not the monitor is going to work well with the card by flashing a portion of the screen through black, grey and white in rapid succession, then displaying the frame rate. There is also a button labeled "Hot Unplug". This duplicates Window's "Safely Remove Hardware" feature.

Once your settings are in place, there are several handy features that make it easier to utilize the additional screen space. Once you open a window, you'll notice two additional buttons in the top right along with minimize, maximize and close. The left most button lets you take a window and automatically maximize it across all of your screens, while simply clicking again brings it back to the original screen. The second button brings up a small drop down menu with a list of your screens so you can quickly jump the window from one monitor to the other, all without having to resize the window. To do this previously, you would have to reduce the window's size so it's not maximized, drag it over to a new screen and maximize it again.