More monitors don't stop windows burying each other; they just give you more places for it to happen. Always On Dock runs an independent dock on each screen you choose, each with its own width, so the thing you need in view on that monitor stays in view. Tested with up to three screens.
With two or more monitors connected, every dock's quick launch bar grows a MONITORS group — one numbered tile per screen, plus an all-monitors tile that turns the whole set on at once. A tile is filled only when a dock is genuinely on screen there, so a dock you hid reads as off, and clicking the tile is how you get it back.
The numbers are the ones Windows itself shows in Settings > Display. That sounds obvious and isn't: the digit in a display's internal device name frequently disagrees with the number Windows puts on screen when you click Identify. Always On Dock reads the active display configuration to get the real ordering, so tile 2 is the monitor Windows calls 2.
Why that matters: on a three-screen machine the internal names and the Settings numbers were measured disagreeing — internal display 3 was the one Windows labelled 2, and internal 2 was Windows' 3. A tile numbered from the wrong source would toggle a dock on a screen you weren't looking at.
Drag one dock wider and the others don't move. A wide strip on the main screen and a narrow one on a portrait secondary stay that way — and both come back at the next sign-in.
Every dock holds up to three windows, split vertically and reorderable by dragging. Three screens with docks means up to nine windows that nothing can cover.
Run a dock on one screen, two, or all of them. Turning one off releases that screen's space immediately and restores the windows that were in it.
Lose a screen and its docked windows are restored onto one that still exists, clamped to fit — not left stranded off the desktop at a size no attached monitor can show.
A monitor still waking up when you sign in used to mean no dock on it for the whole session. A background check re-reconciles what's connected against what you enabled, so it appears when the screen does.
Screens you've never used before can be greeted with a dock automatically — useful if you rotate between a desk setup, a dock at the office, and a projector.
The point of a reserved strip on a second or third monitor isn't more space — you already have that. It's that the strip can't be eaten by the next window you maximize there.
Editor, spreadsheet or document maximized, with a narrow strip holding the one reference you keep glancing at — an AI chat, a spec, a terminal.
Teams or Slack docked so a maximized browser on that same screen can't bury it mid-call, with the rest of the monitor still usable.
Dashboards, logs, a build pipeline or a market feed pinned where they stay visible, while you still maximize things on that screen when you need to.
The most common two-screen case: dock on the laptop panel for chat and notes, external screen left entirely free for the work that needs the pixels.
| Snap / Snap Layouts | Virtual desktops | Reserved space | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works per monitor | Yes | Applies across the whole desktop | Yes — independent dock per screen |
| Survives you maximizing a window | No — the layout collapses | Yes | Yes |
| Remembers a size per screen | No | N/A | Yes, restored at sign-in |
| Keeps the window in view | Until you maximize | Only on that desktop | Always |
| Turn it off for one screen only | N/A | No | One click on that screen's tile |
Reserved space is the same mechanism the taskbar uses, applied per monitor — Windows marks that strip unavailable on that screen, and maximized windows there stop at its edge. The split screen page explains the mechanism in more detail.
Jump focus to the last dock you used, from anywhere — no hunting across three monitors for the window.
Restore your docked windows, including bringing them back after Show Desktop has cleared the screens.
Launch your chosen program straight into a dock, without dragging it there yourself.
It has been tested with up to three screens, which is what the numbered tiles are built around. Each enabled monitor gets its own independent dock, and each dock holds up to three windows split vertically.
Yes — docks are enabled per monitor, in any combination. The numbered tiles toggle a screen's dock with one click, and the menu's "Docks on monitors" list does the same thing from the same state, so the two can't disagree.
Yes. Width is stored per monitor and restored at the next sign-in, so a wide dock on one screen and a narrow one on another stay as you set them.
That screen's dock is removed and its windows are restored onto a screen that still exists, with the size and position clamped to fit it. Reconnect the monitor and the dock returns at its remembered width.
Yes — they're read from the active display configuration rather than from the internal device name, which often disagrees with what Windows shows when you click Identify.
Yes. The numbered tiles only appear when two or more screens are connected; on a single screen the dock works exactly the same, just without anything to switch between.
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