Use a Windows Laptop as a Wireless Monitor

Posted on October 18, 2018 by - Windows, Windows 10

Here is how you can use a Windows Laptop as a secondary Wireless Monitor with a Windows PC

Not everyone loves giant LED screens that take up your whole workspace but it is always good to have the option of having an extra screen to use when you need one. Be it shooting down your enemies in your favorite First-Person-Shooter or watching a thriller, or writing code for a website (where you can use one screen for viewing the code and the other for viewing a live demo), two screens are always better than one.

Fortunately, you don’t have to buy a gigantic screen to be able to do it, nor do you have to have an extra monitor lying around. Do you have an old laptop lying around that you don’t use anymore? You can just hook it up and use it as a wireless monitor.

Microsoft has been kind enough to build this feature right into Windows 10 so you don’t even need to install any third-party software.

Here is how you can hook up a laptop as a secondary wireless monitor to your primary Windows machine (PC or laptop),

Prerequisite

  • A Primary Windows Laptop/PC
  • A Secondary Windows Laptop/PC that you need to use as a wireless display

Both the machines need to support the Miracast streaming video standard, which is built in for most new Windows laptops and desktops. Both the machines also need to be connected to the same local Wi-Fi network for this to work. The good thing about this peer-to-peer nature of connection over the Miracast standard is that this works even without an internet connection.

1. Set-up on the PC to use as a Wireless Monitor

First, you need to set up on the PC that you want to be able to use as a secondary, Wireless Monitor.

  1. Open Windows Settings by pressing START + I.
  2. Click on System and then Projecting to this PC.
    Note: If you don’t see the ‘Projecting to this PC’ option, your PC may not have support for Miracast streaming and won’t work for wireless streaming.
  3. Choose your preferred Settings to set it up,

2. Set-Up on the Primary Machine

Now, you need to set up the streaming on the PC that you will be using as your primary machine.

  1. Just press START + P to open the screen projection menu and click on Connect to a wireless display.
  2. It will scan the local Wi-Fi network to search for any available display streaming devices. Wait a few minutes to let it complete the scan. If you have set up your secondary machine right, it should show up here in the search results. Just select your machine and connect to it when it appears.

That’s it. Windows will now consider your secondary laptop as just another monitor connected to your machine, albeit a wireless one.