Windows Phone 8.1 - Project My Screen on PC

How to "Project My Screen" in Windows Phone 8.1 to a Windows PC​

   Information

Windows Phone 8.1 comes included with a new Project my Screen feature that allows you to be able to project the screen of your phone to a Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 PC screen while the phone is connected to the PC using a USB cable.

Whatever you do on the phone will show on the PC screen. You will also be able to use your PC's mouse and touch screen to operate the phone in the Project My Screen App desktop window.

   Note

"Project My Screen App" Keyboard Shortcuts:

Here's How:

1. If you have not already, you will need to download and install the Project My Screen App (ProjectMyScreenApp.msi) from the Microsoft Download Center below on your Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 PC.

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2. On your PC, run the Project My Screen App. It will run in full screen mode by default, but you can press the F or Alt+Enter keys to toggle between full screen and windowed mode.

3. Connect your Windows Phone 8.1 to the PC using a USB cable. For example, your phone's included USB charging cable.

NOTE: If this is the first time you connected your phone to the PC, then Windows will automatically install drivers for the phone.

4. When prompted for permission on your phone, tap on yes. (see screenshot below)

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5. Your phone's screen should now be projecting on the PC in the Project My Screen App. (see screenshot below)

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   Tip

If you like, you may also wish to turn on or off showing the touch dot, and change the color of the touch dot.

How to Turn On or Off Project My Screen Touch Dot in Windows Phone 8.1

   Note

If phone screen is not projecting on PC:

If you don’t get a prompt on your phone (step 4), and the Project My Screen App remains blank (step 5), then you may have old phone drivers still installed on the PC that need to be uninstalled first.

• Open the WIN+X menu, and click/tap on Device Manager.
• Right click on each device (one at a time) for your phone like below, and click/tap on Uninstall.
• In the Confirm Device Uninstall dialog, check the Delete the driver software for this device box if available, and click/tap on OK.
• When finished uninstalling all devices and drivers for your phone, unplug your phone, and repeat step 3 above.

6. When finished, you can just unplug your phone, and close the Project my Screen app (ALT+F4 or ESC + close (X)) if you like.


That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Turn On or Off Project My Screen Touch Dot in Windows Phone 8.1
• About Windows Phone App to Sync with your Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC
• How to Take a Screenshot in Windows Phone 8 and 8.1

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Can't seem to get the Project My Screen to work. Followed your tutorial here. The app downloaded and installed ok. It stated that a reboot might be in order, but never stated I should. Opened the app, connected my phone to the same USB port I've always used with my WP8 Store app, and went to the Project My Screen settings on the phone to no avail. It just sat there like this:



I disconnected the phone from the USB, rebooted both PC & phone, tried again to no avail. Went to Device Manager thinking it may be USB problems and sure enough I see the phone listed 3 times as seen below. It's strange since I always use the same front PC port that I leave the cable in. However I could have plugged it in by mistake in the port next to it, but then why would it be listed 3 times?

The 3 times it shows in USB is wrong? Wrong driver for this, but correct one for the Store app? Any ideas?

 

[Brink]

Hey Tony,

Yep, that would be correct. The screenshot of my Device Manager is what you should normally have no matter what or which USB port you connected the phone to.

If you haven't already, connect the phone and uninstall the devices and drivers to see if Windows will recognize the phone afterwards (ex: to be able to open the phone in "This PC"), and then hopefully have project screen work properly.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thanks, Shawn. That worked. :thumb:

Was that solution there before? I didn't notice it.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome. Yep, it was there.

 

[Tepid]

Unfortunately, there i no way to start this application in Windowed mode by default at this time
Hopefully that will change.

As a side note....
This app will run as a sudo-PortableApp
Just copy the folder c:\Program Files (x86)\ProjectMyScreenApp
to a different location, uninstall through Programs and Features
It might place icons on your desktop and file elsewhere, but it will run from whatever location you move it to.

Then, you can create a new XML file and configure it as you wish...

Create a Batch file in the same folder as where the ProjectMyScreenApp.exe

Start ProjectMyScreenApp.exe Config.xml

Create the XML and use the following as a starting point...

Find this section
This PhoneConfiguration is for a HD1080 device.

scaleFactor="1.0"

Change that as needed,, about 1.8 seems to work for me to get Landscape apps to show Full Screen
My Phone is a Lumia Icon

There is a downside,, The start screen and Portrait only apps will be cut off at the top and bottom
It's not robust enough to make the distinction, but still useful for certain things...
such as, travel and using Here Drive or other.
You can navigate the phone using touch on a Surface Pro,, works pretty good, but has some lag.

You could create a second Batch file with no config, or a configured config.xml to work as normal
So you could have several depending on scenario.

the XML below has no images in it. So All you will get is a black screen with no borders.
But, just drop images in the same folder (PNG's) as the rest of the files and declare them in the right locations

imageRelPath=""

with a little tweaking you can get the look you want.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!--

README

This is a sample configuration file for the application,
which allows one to customize certain aspects of the contents displayed
on the screen.

All the elements and attributes here are compulsory (although where
indicated, some attributes take in empty strings "").  All elements must
also be laid out in the order in the sample.


To run the application with this configuration file, launch it
with this file passed in as a parameter.

i.e. Run "ProjectMyScreenApp.exe Config.xml".

One can also create a shortcut with the parameter passed in, for quicker
launching of the app.


Z-ORDER OF SCREEN ELEMENTS

From top to bottom:
- video output
- phone image
- screen background image
- screen background color

-->

<Config
    version="1">
    <PhoneConfigurations>

        <!--
    This PhoneConfiguration is for a WXGA device.

    The configuration is selected automatically  (app will be
    updated accordingly) when a phone is plugged into the PC via USB.

    NOTE: only 1 configuration for each resolution is supported.

    resolutionX     is the width in pixels of the device's screen

    resolutionY     is the height in pixels of the device's screen

    default         "true" or "false", and determines if the given
                    configuration is loaded (visible on the screen) by
                    default if no phone is plugged in
    -->
        <PhoneConfiguration
            resolutionX="768"
            resolutionY="1280"
            default="true">

            <!--
      App background properties

      The entire app background will be filled with the specified color,
      and the background image (if specified) is scaled to fit, and drawn
      over it, in the center of the window.

      color         the background color in ARGB hex values.

      imageRelPath  a path (relative to exe) to a background
                    image.  If no background image is desired, leave the
                    atribute empty ("").
      -->
            <Background
                color="0x00000000"
                imageRelPath=""
          />

            <!--
      Phone image properties

      The phone image will be drawn above the background image, scaled and
      offset accordingly, if specified.

      imageRelPath  a path (relative to exe) to a phone image. 
                    If no background image is desired, leave the
                    atribute empty ("")

      scaleFactor   the scale factor of the phone image (and elements above
                    if), as a fraction of the background image's width or
                    height, whichever is more constrained.  If no
                    background image was specified, the app window's
                    dimensions are used instead

      centerOffsetX the horizontal offset of the center of the phone image
                    from the center of the background image in pixels
                    if there is no background image, this is ignored

      centerOffsetY the vertical offset of the center of the phone image
                    from the center of the background image in pixels
                    if there is no background image, this is ignored

      ***Button     (optional) the left, top, right and bottom coordinates
                    of the hardware back, windows and search buttons
      -->       
			<PhoneImage
                imageRelPath=""
                scaleFactor="1.0"
                centerOffsetX="250"
                centerOffsetY="0"
            />

            <!--
      Video Output properties

      The video output captured from the phone's screen will be drawn
      above the phone image, scaled and offset accordingly.

      If no phone image is specified above (imageRelPath=""), the
      attributes in the VideoOutput key is ignored.  Dummy attributes will
      have to be specified, however, to satisfy the parser.

      weight        the width of the video output as a fraction of the
                    phone image's width.
                    
      topLeftOffsetX
                    the horizontal offset of the top-left corner of the
                    video output from the top-left corner of the phone
                    image in pixels.

      topLeftOffsetY
                    the vertical offset of the top-left corner of the
                    video output from the top-left corner of the phone
                    image in pixels.
      -->
            <VideoOutput
                weight="0.875"
                topLeftOffsetX="34"
                topLeftOffsetY="60"
          />
        </PhoneConfiguration>

        <!--
    This PhoneConfiguration is for a HD1080 device.
    -->
        <PhoneConfiguration
            resolutionX="1080"
            resolutionY="1920"
            default="false">
            <Background
                color="0x00000000"
                imageRelPath=""
          />
            <PhoneImage
                imageRelPath=""
                scaleFactor="1.0"
                centerOffsetX="250"
                centerOffsetY="0"
          />
            <VideoOutput
                weight="0.875"
                topLeftOffsetX="34"
                topLeftOffsetY="60"
          />
            <TouchDots
                enabled="true"
                color="0xb2f79608"
                radius="38"
          />
        </PhoneConfiguration>
		
    </PhoneConfigurations>
</Config>