surface pro 1024x768 resolution doesn't fill the screen

Thanks!  I finally got an answer that works... 

[Win+P] and then selecting "2nd Screen Only" will fill my HD Monitor.

Woohoo!

Here is how you fix this no bull....

The Surface pro screen is a different shape to a full wide screen monitor. So when you connect a second screen which is wider (proportionally wider that is) to the Surface Pro the little Surface Pro still outputs to the big monitor the same picture shape in the same proportions (height and width) as if it were being displayed on the Little Surface Pro. Little Pro has not noticed the big wide screen poor little chap.

That means you get the same shape picture on the second full screen monitor as you see on Little Pro, the picture sent by Little Pro is not wide enough so you get black strips either side.

The way that you fix this is that you have to tell the Little Surface Pro that he/she is connected to a big wide screen. 

The way that you tell Little Surface Pro he or she is connected to a big wide screen is to change the shape of the picture Little Pro is sending out, in Windows 10 you do this as follows:

Go to 'settings', you get there by clicking on the Windows icon bottom left of the home screen >then click on the 'cog icon'>now you are in the settings control panel>select 'system' top left>then select 'display' top left>look for 'Scale and Layout'>click the dropdown menu>

You will now see a lot of screen settings in pixels, geeks love this but its not important, this is just a lot of different screen picture shapes measured in pixels not inches or metric as we humans like to measure things.

The Surface pro without a full wide monitor attached should be set to 2160x1440

Change this setting to 1920x1080

Now you will see the picture output from Little Pro fill the screen of the wide monitor (assuming your monitor is 1920x1080 which most new monitors are. If not just play about with the settings to see which is best remembering the original setting of 2160x1440). You will also see a black strip appear at the top of the Little Surface Pro Screen. This is because the screens are different shapes so the picture the Little Pro in now sending to the big monitor is the wrong shape for the the Little Surface Pro Screen.

When you disconnect the big screen just reset the Little Pro back to 2160x1440

Thank you for reading this and I hope you have understood it , written by a user who can write, I just hate the stuff geeks write, its not cool to write stuff nobody can understand. I learned at law school that if you read something you cannot understand it may mean; the writer probably did not understand it either, and is probably  pretending to know more than they do or is a charlatan.

I also solve legal problems just Google me 'James Black  Esq Investigator'.

Kind regards

James Black LLB

Hi Teri,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

I appreciate your efforts in getting the issue resolved. I will definitely help you.

Based on the issue description, it appears that you are having problems with the resolution on the Surface Tab.

Please answer the following questions so that I could assist you further:

1. Have you made any recent changes to your Surface?
2. Are you receiving any error messages?

Try the following steps and get back to me with the results:

1. Auto AdjustUse the auto adjust button present on the tablet to automatically fill the screen.
2. SettingsUse the resolution settings to find an option to auto- adjust. Also, try searching the perfect resolution for your Surface version.
3. Remote Desktop websiteFind versions of the remote desktop software that work in the resolution that you are in or the one that works on your computer.
4. SupportThe support department of the Surface may be able to assist you further. Contact them or post this question in the Remote Desktop Software forum.

Ashwin

We would like to set the resolution on our Surface Pro to 10924x768 for when we use the remote desktop to connect to our corporate systems.  When I set it to this, it doesn't fill the screen.  How do I get it to fill the screen?  I have downloaded and installed the latest Intel driver for the display.

 

Thanks!

Don't you just love the beautifully formatted, entirely missing the point but cheerily "helpful" reply above mine? 

Bottom line is you can't get 1024x768 to fill a wide-screen display in any way that would be enjoyable.  1024x768 has a ratio of 4:3 in horizontal vs. vertical pixel count, while the Surface screen is a 16:9 ratio display more like an HDTV.  So you can sort of 'magnify' and fill the display vertically, but you'll still have black bars left and right.  If it magnified and stretched, all your icons and text would be very oddly fattened and the interface wouldn't seem to work very well anyway.

The same would be true if you were using a desktop with a widescreen monitor; this isn't the Surface's fault or a specific driver issue - it's just math.  There's no way to fit in both directions without a different scaling factor horizontally and vertically.

I don't know if you're using Windows remote desktop or some sort of corporate client based on Juniper (VPN connection), but your best option may be to leave the surface screen at the default display and just show a 1024x768 window to your desktop, if permitted.  That won't be as large as forcing the surface to 1024x768 and having your remote interface fill the screen (vertically),  but it may make for a crisper view.  If you can give a bit more info about your specific remote connection method I might be able to make another suggestion.

Rgds, RTR

Hi Teri,

to me it works after setting to duplicate to a second screen in the Windows Settings (Win+P).

Best regards

Andreas