How to Split Screen in Windows 10 ?


👤 Diwas Poudel    🕒 17 Mar 2021    📁 TECH

Suppose you are a designer, developer, gamer, or even general user. You often feel that one screen is not sufficient for doing the job and want at least two screens. For achieving that you need two separate monitors and if you do not have a sufficient budget you cannot achieve that.If so you can use this free solution provided by Windows 10 Os. windows 10 inbuilt features for splitting your monitor into 2 or more working screens. This great feature of Windows 10 is Multitasking. If you like to work with several windows like One for web browsing, Second for a youtube video, third for MS Word, fourth for mail. Then you can make complete 4 screens and work on each of them and all of them will be visible to you at the same time and no need to minimize any of them. And you might feel you are a multitasking person.

Actually, this feature is not new in Windows OS, it is also available in Windows 7 and 8.

Advantage of Windows 10 MultiTasking Features

1) Enable Multitasking
2) Two or more users can work simultaneously with two instances.

Enabling Windows 10 MultiTasking Features

This multitasking is aero snap features of Windows OS which is enabled default in Windows 10 using Windows Snap Assist Setting. But let's cross verify and enable it.

1 Search "Multitasking Settings" in Windows Search Bar as shown below.

2 Click on MultiTasking Settings and will get a Screen like below.

multitasking snap setting

Make sure to toggle On "Snap Windows" and check all the checkboxes options. Options are:

  i) When I snap a window, automatically size it to fill available space

  ii) When I snap a window, show what I can snap next to it.

  iii) When I resize a snapped window, simultaneously resize any adjacent snapped window.

After this feature is activated, you can simply drag a window on one side of the screen and it will fit on that side automatically. If you drag and drop the window on the left side then will take half of the screen, similarly, If you drag and drop the window on the right side then will take the right half of the screen.

Likewise, dragging the window to one of the 4 corners will make the window easy to fill a single quadrant. Can do for other windows by dragging and dropping to the next corner and fit the next quadrant and soon.   

Note that based version of Windows 10, these options may differ. Just enable all checkboxes which are under Snap Setting.

Split Screen in Two Half

1 First Choose the application Window you want to use for the split, then hold down the left mouse button and drag that Windows to the left edge until you see a transparent outline. This will take up 50% of the windows.

2 Next open the next application window you want to use for the split, drag that Windows to the right edge until you see a transparent outline. This will fill up the next 50% of the windows.

You can use the above step 2 first and then step 1 and vice versa.

Split Screen in 3 or 4 Half

1 First Choose the application Window you want to use for the split, then hold down the left mouse button and drag that Windows to the left edge until you see a transparent outline

2 Next open the next application window you want to use for the split, drag that Windows to the right edge until you see a transparent outline.

3 Drag Third windows to down

4 Drag Fourth Windows to up.

Split Windows Using Keyboard Shortcut

1. Windows Key + Left Arrow: Move active window to left of Screen
2. Windows Key + Right Arrow: Move Active Window to Right of Screen
3. Windows Key + Up Arrow: Move Active Window to Up of Screen
2. Windows Key + Down Arrow: Move Active Window to Down of Screen 

Using Freeware for Split Screen

There are various free split screen software. Some of them are WindowGrid, GridMove, AltDrag, Spectacle, Microsoft PowerToys, Aquasnap, Divvy, Shutter Split Screen, etc.

1 WindowGrid

WindowGrid allows you to quickly and easily layout your screen with a user dynamically set grid using a mouse. Here, we use both left and right mouse.

Advantage:

  • Has portable as well as Installable version
  • Works perfectly with Windows 10 Aerosnap features

2 Microsoft Powertoys

It allows us to create a complex layout with which the latest Windows 10 snap features cannot compete with.

Advantage:

  • Custom Grid Layouts
  • Command-line installation facilities.
    WinGet install powertoys

Among them, some are better than windows default Split Screen Features

Problem Faced and Solution related to Split Screen

Q) How to Fix Win­dows Snap Assist Not Working?

For this, you can give it a try below solutions.

1 ) Enabling Multitasking features explained above.

2) Resize Screen Size

3) Stop explorer.exe from the task manager

4) Run Window System troubleshooting feature.

5) Turn tablet mode off.

6) Try upgrade graphics driver

7) If using in desktop then try using in another monitor