Remote users with multiple monitors often don't want Remote Desktop Connection to take over all monitors. This is useful when there are 3 monitors on the computer, such as a laptop computer with 2 external monitors plugged in. Use these procedures to take over only 2 of the 3 monitors, leaving one display for local activities such as Teams calling.


Determine your monitor layout

  1. Right click on your desktop and choose Display settings.
  2. Review the monitors that Windows can identify. Note the numbers and position of the monitors.
  4. Click the Identify button to see a number pop up on each monitor. Confirm that the number you see matches the position of the monitors (Monitor 2 is on the left in my example). If the layout doesn't match you will have trouble moving the mouse from one screen to another. 
  5. Drag the monitors to match the orientation of the physical monitors. Use the Identify button again to confirm everything is correct.
  6. Leave this settings window open.

Determine the monitors as identified by Remote Desktop Connection

  1. Press [WIN] R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
  2. Type the following in the box. The parameter is a lowercase letter "L":
  3. mstsc /l
  5. Remote desktop will identify your monitors by a number. This list starts at zero, so monitor 1 is monitor 0 in Remote desktop.
  7. Leave this window open, too.

Save a shortcut for your Remote Desktop Connection host

  1. Open Remote Desktop Connection from you start menu. It will show you the host you most recently connected to.
  2. Click Show Options
  4. Click the Display tab and then choose Use all my monitors for the remote session.
  6. Click the General tab and then click Save as.
  8. Save the file on your desktop so you can easily connect to it. Name it something other than "Default" so you know what computer it will connect to when you open the icon. I chose "My work computer.rdp".

Edit the RDP file to specify the full-screen monitors to use

  1. Right click the new file and choose Edit with Notepad ++
  2. Add a new line at the top and enter the following. Replace the 0,1 with a comma separated list of the monitors you want to use that are identified on your system.
  3. selectedmonitors:s:0,1
  5. Close and save the file


Open the file to test your new configuration. Login to your remote desktop and it should only use the monitors full screen that were specified in the file.