Fix 0XC0262332 Error – Duplicate Video Target ID

This error is a pain, but you can fix it in 10 minutes

You're staring at error 0XC0262332 and your second monitor is just a black box. I get it. This happened to a client last month who plugged in a third monitor to a Dell Precision laptop—poof, everything went haywire. The fix is straightforward: you've got two display targets fighting over the same ID. Here's how to break the tie.

The fix that works 9 times out of 10

Skip the random driver reinstalls. The fastest way is to nuke the display configuration in the registry and let Windows rebuild it. Here's the step-by-step:

Press Win + R, type regedit, hit Enter.
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers.
Right-click GraphicsDrivers key, choose Export to back it up. Name it something like "graphics_backup.reg".
Now delete the Configuration and Connectivity subkeys under GraphicsDrivers. Yes, delete them. Windows will rebuild them on next boot.
Close Regedit. Restart your PC.

After the restart, you'll go back to single-monitor mode. Plug your monitors back in one at a time. Let Windows auto-detect them. The error should be gone.

If that doesn't work, use Device Manager

On rare occasions, the registry trick isn't enough. Do this instead:

Open Device Manager (right-click Start > Device Manager).
Expand Display adapters.
Right-click your graphics card and select Uninstall device. Check the box that says "Delete the driver software for this device" if you see it.
Don't restart yet. Now go to Action menu > Scan for hardware changes.
Windows will reinstall the default driver. Restart after it's done.

This is more nuclear—you lose custom settings—but it cleans out any stale ID assignments. Had a customer with a custom-built gaming rig where that was the only fix.

Why this happens

Each video output on your graphics card—HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI—has a unique ID number called a target ID. Windows uses these to know which monitor is which. When something goes wrong during driver updates, hot-plugging monitors, or after a sleep/wake cycle, sometimes two outputs end up with the same ID. The error code 0xC0262332 is Microsoft's way of saying "I can't tell these two apart."

Deleting the Configuration subkey forces Windows to re-enumerate all displays from scratch, giving each one a fresh, unique ID. The Connectivity subkey holds info about which ports are active—removing it ensures no stale port assignments linger.

Less common variations

Sometimes the error pops up in Event Viewer without a visible screen issue. Check under Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System and filter by source Display. If you see the error but no black screen, it's usually tied to a docking station. Here's what I've seen:

Dell WD19TB dock: The dock's DisplayLink driver conflicts with the native GPU driver. Uninstall the DisplayLink driver from Programs and Features, reboot, then let Windows Update reinstall it.
Lenovo ThinkPad USB-C dock: Same story. Disable the dock's integrated graphics in Device Manager before plugging in monitors. Go to View > Show hidden devices, find anything called "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" under the dock's hub, right-click > Disable.
VMware or Hyper-V: If you use virtual machines, the host's graphics driver can get confused. Restart the VM service: open Command Prompt as admin, type net stop vmms then net start vmms. Not common, but I saw it once on a Server 2019 box.

How to prevent this from coming back

This error is almost always caused by a bad driver update. So:

Stick to OEM drivers. Don't grab the latest from NVIDIA or AMD if your laptop manufacturer hasn't approved it. I learned this the hard way with a ThinkPad P52—the official Lenovo driver was two versions behind but never caused this error.
Don't hot-plug monitors during sleep. Wake the PC first, then connect the monitor. That's when the ID collision happens most often.
Use a single video cable per monitor. Don't connect a monitor via both HDMI and DisplayPort at the same time—it confuses the GPU and can trigger duplicate IDs.

If you follow those, you'll likely never see 0xC0262332 again. But if you do, now you know the fix.