Lyte Byte

If you are person who used to give lots of presentations in the PowerPoint or other forms while connecting your laptop to a bigger external screen or overhead projector, then you might be wondering how to change the desktop wallpaper or reduce the volume down or turn off the screen saver or turn off the notifications.

(Pic 1: Wallpaper when presentation mode turned off, Pic 2: Wallpaper when presentation mode turned on)

In Windows Vista, you can change these settings through Windows Mobility Center.

To open Windows Mobility Center, you can go to Start -> Control Panel -> Mobile PC -> Windows Mobility Center. Or just go to start and type Mobility on the search box and press enter.

How to change Presentation Settings?

First you can either manually turn on the presentation mode or you can setup so that when you connect to any external display device, it would automatically turn on.

One of the box in Windows Mobility Center would be Presentation Settings, Click Turn On. Now, Click the Over head projector symbol to change the settings.

Here, you can turn off the screen saver, set the volume to low or mute it, change the desktop background etc.

To automatically change settings from next time, click connected displays when you are connected to an external monitor or another projector. Choose the external display and check the box below which says, I always give a presentation when I use this display configuration.

So the next time when you give your presentation, you need not show to others what desktop wallpaper you use or you will not have any ugly moments like some outlook notification popping up or screen filled with screen saver.

If you are giving the presentation to only a handful people, maybe sitting in the office lobby or sitting in Starbucks, you can turn on Presentation Mode manually. Just type mobility in Start -> Search bar and turn on or you can even pin the windows mobility center to the Start Menu.