Parallels 7 on Lion - Reduced Multi Monitor Support

Just upgraded to Parallels 7 and my fears for multi-monitor support seem to have been realised. Now that Parallels uses Apples 'Full Screen' mode on Lion it becomes useless for users with multiple monitors. In Parallels 6 when you switch to Full Screen mode parallels takes over one entire display and leaves the other display available for use by OS X programs. However when you do the same thing in Parallels 7 on Lion one display is taken over by Parallels and the other goes blank and cannot be used for anything. This is exactly the behaviour I see when I go into Full Screen in Apple apps like Mail.app so I can't really blame Parallels except to say why switch to this 'improved' system and not just use the old full screen mode that worked fine? Any chance of an option to switch to the old method in a future update?

Andrew

 

Andrew, thank you for your message. We will think on it. Your reason seems clear to us.

 

I second this and have filed this as a problem. I have a very powerful Mac Pro and loved Parallels 6 for allowing me to run 3 different OS fullscreen on separate monitors.

Please release an update ASAP which gives the user the option to use the old style or Lion's UN-"improved" style.

Can I revert back to Parallels 6 which worked absolutely fine for me?

 

Movura Yes, you can.

 

Thanks, tried and tested. I would say works beautifully now, but thats only because I'm back on 6.

Also, (possibly related) Coherence didn't work either. kept saying "The virtual machine display configuration could not be applied.". Tried uninstalling Tools and reinstalling it to no avail, hence my severe urge to move back to 6.

Of course, I would still love to upgrade again to 7 at some point, but until these issues have been resolved... I'll be a bit behind the times...

 

I agree we need to go back to the old full screen mode for multiple monitor support. Apple's full screen mode is useless with multiple monitors. Please fix this as soon as you can.

 

Just posting to add my amen to this. Please fix asap....

 

I am a multi-monitor user who uses Parallels to develop in Visual Studio on a Mac. I have definitely found this to be incredibly disruptive. It was so disruptive to my work flow that I have chosen to step back to Parallels 6 for the moment.

However, I do not blame Parallels here. Fundamentally, this appears to be an Apple implementation fault with full-screen applications under Lion that needs to be resolved generically for multi-monitor systems. A full screen application should not block other displays from being used.

I hope Parallels are talking with Apple directly about getting this corrected at the OS level. Could somebody confirm if this is the case?

In lieu of a proper fix from Apple, as others have requested, it would be nice to be able to choose between the old or new behaviour.

Thanks!

 

+1 from me! Will probably go back to PD 6 too.

 

There's really not much point reverting back. It's only caused me more grief. Coherence no longer works, despite trying EVERYTHING. Also, the fullscreen mode has been playing up now. I will confirm whether it's actually still working or not when I get back to the office tomorrow.

 

Parallels you need to fix the multiple displays issues ASAP, please. Parallels 7 has become a virtually useless environment for me. What were you thinking?

 

Agreed. This needs to be fixed asap! P7 is pretty much useless if I can use multiple monitors. Might as well be running BootCamp!

 

How do you revert back to Parallels 6?

 

BTW: You can not easily revert to P6. After uninstalling P7 and re-installing P6 the VM couldn't be started at all. Had to restore time machine backup of my VM which now runs fine in the old P6 environment.

 

Reverting includes the deinstallation of Parallels tools before you deinstall the new program version. Then you install the older version, start the VM and let PD install the tools automatically - done.

 

Hmmmm, yesterday I joined the chorus of users damning the fullscreen behavior in PD 7 without trying myself. This morning in the office where I have an external monitor to try - well, there is no problem at all. The animation is a little bit bumpy, but I get bot the internal and the external display to work in the VM just as I was used to with PD 6.Or did I miss the point?

 

re #16: seems that you may have missed the point...please see Parallels statement: http://kb.parallels.com/en/112176

 

This is absolute bs. There should be a way to switch between the two modes: 'Lion' & 'Pre-Lion' full screen mode.

Multi monitor support is useless without this option.

 

KrishnaD Take it easy. Please be patient.

 

Glad to hear that Parallels are looking at a fix for this. Until the fix arrives I will just avoid using full screen mode as there is no way I am going back to version 6. The suspend and resume speed in Parallels 7 is just amazing and worth the price of the upgrade on its own.