Controlling a Cinema Display from XP

With the DVI to ADC adapter a success I’ve run into a new issue with the Apple monitor I salvaged. There are no physical controls for the brightness and I can’t turn the monitor off. The power button on the ACD is designed to control the monitor as well as the Mac it’s connected to. Pin 13 on the ADC spec is listed as “soft power” so I assume that is where the functionality comes from. While there is a brightness button on the front of the display, its function is to open of the display preferences in OS X so you can adjust the settings there.

All of that is great if you are using a Mac with an ADC video card or even an ADC adapter (the brightness controls are controlled through the USB connection), but there is no way to control the monitor from a Windows PC natively. Luckily there is the Internet and the great world of open source software. A few years ago a guy by the name of Laurent Morichetti wrote an application called WinACD. The function of the program was simple; give Windows XP users the same control over their ACD monitors as Mac users have.

The installation process is simple.

  1. Download WinACD from http://sourceforge.net/projects/winacd/.
  2. With the monitor’s USB cable disconnected, run the WinACD installer.
  3. If any popups appear saying the drivers are not signed click “Continue Anyway”.
  4. Once the installation is finished plug in the USB cable from the monitor.

Controlling the monitor settings is as simple on XP as they are on a Mac now. When looking at the advanced display settings a new tab is available. Under it there are controls for the brightness and monitor buttons. There is also an option to control the monitor’s brightness using shortcut keys.


There are a few issues with WinACD. There has been no development on the program since 2006 so it does not support any of the new LED Cinema Displays. WinACD doesn’t work on any 64-bit version of Windows. Also, as you can see my screenshots I cannot change any of the settings for the monitor buttons. That is probably just specific to monitor I am using. If you can over look those issues then WinACD is a great application for anybody using an Apple Cinema Display.