Long post. I've broken it up to respond.
I will try to answer the specific questions brought up in the last reply to my inability to get the HPw2207 to function with my Mac Air Pro laptop. I apologize for my descriptive terms in describing my problem. After a week of trials with different setups I had gotten pretty frustrated. As I said before this HPw2207 works well connected to my Windows XP computer. I will describe what I have done as technically correct as I can.
I have a Mac Air Pro laptop with High Sierra 10.13.1. It has two Thunderbird connection slots which is where I started with a Thunderbird to VGA adapter. The HPw2207 monitor has two video connectors, a VGA and a DVI. I hooked up a VGA cable to the HPw2207. I powered up the monitor and I see a screen that says "No VGA signal" then Monitor going to sleep.
Probably the connector was incompatible with Mac or with the monitor.
Before I tried to use the HPw2207 I had an old 19" TV with an HDMI input connector and when I connect an HDMI cable to it from my Mac Air Pro it works perfectly as a second monitor screen. Since I knew I was getting a good signal with the HDMI port on the Mac Air Pro I purchased an adapter to convert the HDMI signal to VGA. I connected a VGA cable to the to the HDMI adapter at the Mac Air and connected that to the VGA connector on the HPw2207. Still no VGA signal at the monitor. I went back and reviewed the HPw2207 installation instructions and saw a place for a USB connection in addition to the VGA connection. I don't know what the function is but I added the USB cable. I was able to get a Desktop screen showing on the monitor.
So the monitor and Mac are communicating and working properly at that point.[/QUOTE] The desktop screen did not duplicate the screen showing on the Mac Air. There was a Toolbar across the top of the Desktop screen on the HPw2207 but the Desktop items on the Mac Air did not show up on the HPw2207. The Mac Air had the Dock with all of my Apps on the right hand side but they did not show up on the HPw2207.[/QUOTE]Yep, that's how it works as default. Second monitors are usually used as additional screen, not duplicate screen, so Apple defaults to that approach. It is settable at System Preferences/Displays.
I went to System Preferences/Dock and I had a choice of Right side, Bottom or Left Side for the Dock location. I tried all three and the only one that showed up on the HPw2207 was Left Side.
That result means that the new monitor is on the left of your main screen on the Mac. It's like the two screens were attached at the left edge of the Mac, right edge of the other monitor. That is also selectable in System Preferences/Displays.
Since I now had a way connect to the Mac Air, I clicked on the icon in the Dock for Firefox. Nothing happened. I clicked on the icon for Thunderbird. Nothing happened.
None of that has anything to do with the monitor. Something else is wrong with FF or TB.
I clicked on the icon for Safari and the Safari site opened up. I changed resolution on the HPw2207 screen and that didn't solve anything.
Yep, that's not how to do things. I'm assuming you changed resolutions on the monitor itself and not on the Mac, based on the next sentence.
When I went to System Preferences/Displays I didn't see my HPw2207.
It doesn't show up separately, it's in the Displays panel under System Preferences. And when you select Displays, the control for the HP should show up on the HP.
The HPw2207 is just not functioning as a real interface to the computer. Very strange.
Oh, yes, it is working as Apple designed.
Something just crossed my mind. I had the HPw2207 hooked up to my Mac Mini for several years with a VGA cable to a Thunderbird adapter on my Mac Mini. The screen was shutting down occasionally so I bought another HP 22 CWA which I hooked up to my Mac Mini with an HDMI cable and is working well. I thought perhaps the Thunderbird connection was bad rather than the HPw2207. Perhaps something went bad in the HPw2207 at that time tho it still functioned well on the Windows XP computer.
The software I was speaking were drivers that might be available. When I looked these up for the HPw2207 it showed Drivers for Windows but none for Mac. I was looking everywhere for some clue. I was determined to solve this problem but at this point I have given up.
Again, you are mixing terms and tools. Thunderbird is an email client, has zero connections to the monitor as hardware. Screens do shut down to preserve the screen and save power if there is no input change over a time. That's normal. It should be settable in the HP, but may not, depends on how HP implemented it.
So, look at System Preferences/Displays and you should see something like this on the Mac:
That is the main panel for controlling the displays. On the HP you might see something like this:
If you click on Arrangement, you should see this:
In your screen, the HP should be on the left of the Mac, not on the right as I have it shown. You can adjust that on the Arrangement screen. For more information, read this from Apple:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202351
At this point the monitor is working exactly as it should. You need to learn from the Apple article how it works and how to set it up as you want it. Good luck with it!
