Section 5 - Multi-display Tips/Tricks/Programs section
Windows 2000 and higher fully supports multi-display, however with little functionality. Luckily, as multi-display grows more popular, programs are being developed to add those functions that Microsoft missed.
Programs
The Quick List (details below):
- Ultramon ($40)
- All-in-one Multi-display manager.
- MultiMonitor TaskBar (Free)
- Adds secondary taskbars and a few window functions.
- Zmover (Free)
- Window management program supporting multi-display systems.
- Maxivista ($30)
- Software that can use other computers as secondary monitors.
- MouseJail (Free)
- Traps mouse to primary monitor while full screen program running. (See Escaping Mouse Fix below)
Details:
Ultramon is a small but powerful program developed by Realtime Soft. A single license costs $40 each, but is well worth the money for many reasons. Firstly, it adds secondary taskbars, secondly it adds buttons to windows so you can send a window (maximized or not) to other screens. This program can also set shortcut keys with multi-display function (See Tricks below). Ultramon can also manage desktop wallpapers and screensavers very effectively. You can also use it to set were windowed program and full screen programs will open (which screen, what position, etc.). See
Overview and
Features of the Ultramon website.
On a side note: I’ve seen many slightly modified version of Ultramon being sold by multi-monitor companies with boosted pricing: In the $100 and $200 range! Compare for yourself: Pricing for one license (notice any similarities in the programs?) Ultramon ($40), 9X Media ($200) , Cinemassive ($99), Zenview ($75).
MultiMonitor TaskBar offered by MediaChance is a alternative to Ultramon. It doesn’t contain all the features Ultramon has, but will certainly facilitate your multi-display experience and it’s completely free. MediaChance also made a “PRO” version which is unfortunately not free, but contains a few more features.
Zmover is also useful if you do not get a program like Ultramon. It is basically a Window management program supporting multi-display systems. See Description
here.
MaxiVista is a program that can use other computers as a secondary monitor for the primary computer. This is useful if you want to use, for exemple, a laptop’s screen as a secondary display for a PC. All is needed is a LAN connection. Great way to test out multi-display (you could use the trial version) with a laptop before buying another monitor for your PC!
Tricks/Tips
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Launch in specific monitor: You can use Ultramon or Zmover to set your desktop shortcuts so they launch their programs in a window of certain size, position and monitor. However, only Ultramon can also modify your multi-display settings when you launch the shortcut, and restore the settings when the application exists. Using this method, you can change the primary monitor so that full-screen applications can launch in a specific monitor.
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Wallpaper Trick: Windows only allows you to use one image for your desktop background. Or sometimes the image simply repeats in all monitors. To work around this (without using Ultramon) all you need is a picture editing program (even mspaint will work) and the pictures you want for your wallpaper. All you need to do is set your editor to create an image of the exact size (in pixels) as your entire desktop, and add your pictures so that they will appear in the correct monitor(s). Now simply set your “custom” wallpaper to center, tile or stretch, whichever seems best (sometimes depends on how your monitors are configured) and voilà problem solved. This is basically what Ultramon does when you use the wallpaper manager.
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Icon Fix: One problem you may come across, is the desktop icons may “shift” back onto the primary monitor, or just re-align when disabling a secondary screen, or sometime running a full screen program. Ultramon offers a solution for this, however, it’s sometimes misses a few icons. I came across a solution, when I was reading
Tweakguides’ Tweaking Companion by Koroush Ghazi* Here is an excerpt in the Visual & Convenience Tweaks section.
TGTC said:
SAVE DESKTOP ICON POSITIONS
This tweak allows you to save the current positions of your desktop icons so that if the icons are rearranged or moved you can quickly restore them back to their saved position at any time. To give you this added functionality in XP, do the following:
1. Download the file
Layout.zip (mirror:
here) and extract the contents to an empty directory.
2. Copy the file Layout.dll to your \Windows\System32 directory.
3. Double-click on the Layout.reg file to automatically make the appropriate changes to your Registry.
4. Go to your Desktop and arrange all your icons as you would like them to be saved.
5. Once done, right-click on the Recycle Bin and select the new ‘Save Desktop Icon Layout’ option. The
positions of all the icons are now saved.
6. You can move the icons around freely and whenever you want them restored to their original saved positions, right-click on Recycle Bin again and select ‘RestoreDesktop Icon Layout’.
This tweak is particularly handy if you’re installing new graphics card drivers for example and your
Desktop icons get messed up, or you change resolutions and they get scrambled around.
*Version 4.0 – May 2008
Side Note: I really recommend you read Ghazi’s work if you haven’t already, very useful.
http://www.tweakguides.com/
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Quick Window Control: A great trick that I have found: If you have a mouse with a(some) multi-function button(s), you could set it(them) to press an F-key. Using Ultramon or other software, set a shortcut to that F-key to move selected windows over to the next screen. You can now fully control your windows with a click of a button.
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Escaping Mouse Fix: Some older games allow the mouse to “escape” the monitor the game is running on, to other monitors. When you click outside the game, the game looses focus and will either pause or minimize. To fix this problem, you can use MouseJail. (See
webpage) Another solution is to use Ultramon to automatically disable secondary screens when you launch those games.
