Full Dual Monitor Support (WinXP on OSX)

Unfortunately, that's not what most of us are looking for. That isn't true dual monitor support; that makes Windows think all your Mac displays are one big monitor. The problem with this is twofold: first, windows that are centered pop up straddling the two displays. Second, when you span both your Mac monitors, your virtual Windows desktop is limited to the height of the smallest monitor. So, for some people who use a MacBook for example with an external monitor, if they enable this "Use multiple displays" they only get a vertical 800 pixels of Windows space on the external monitor no matter how big it really is.

Passing through the parameters of the actual displays to Parallels and creating two virtual ones there would be best, but I bet the trouble comes in integrating those two displays into a single Parallels window. Still, I hope it will be done. Parallels+Windows on OS X in Coherence mode is the Killer App for me; this would make it even better.

 

Parallels supporting multiple monitors in WinXP

Parallels supporting multiple monitors in WinXP would be the ultimate application for all of us needing to work in simultanious applications in both OSX and WinXP. Is this planed in a future release?

 

While I have not yet tried using one virtual machine as the master for MaxiVista - I have run two virtual machines as clients to a ThinkPad T42 as the master.

15" screen built in on T42 with Win XP Pro as monitor #1 - external 19" attached to the T42 as monitor #2 - MacBook Pro with Parallels running Win2k Pro on 23" in full screen as monitor #3 - and MacBook Pro with Parallels running Win2k Pro on built-in 17" screen as monitor #4. each virtual machine only needs about 256MB of RAM and only puts about 10% load on the Mac CPUs. if I can get the company to replace my 19" with a 23" on the T42 I will have nearly 9 million pixels to work with.

Still - dual monitor support from within Parallels would mean that you could use the basic version of MaxiVista instead of the Pro version.

 

I'd like to add my voice to the small chorus of folks who would like the Parallels team to develop true multimonitor support for the Windows VM.

For many applications, I enjoy having Windows on one monitor and Mac OSX on the other. Occasionally, I use Coherence. But there are specific Windows apps I use, teleradiology programs in particular, where the ability of the software to address each monitor as an individual resource is very important to me. The only way this works for me currently is to use bootcamp, but I'd really prefer to use the VM.

 

I too hope that proper multi-display support is coming in the next version.

My typical set-up, whether running in Boot Camp or Mac OSX, is to have my 17" MacBook Pro display running natively at 1680x1050 as my secondary display and an external 24" monitor running at 1920x1200 as my primary display.

When in Boot Camp I stick Outlook on my secondary display and maximize it to fill that screen, then I typically run everything else on the external primary display. Note that my Start menu bar from Windows stays neatly on the primary display and does NOT extend to the secondary display.

Running Parallels on this set-up is sub-optimal because I either have to choose to stick Windows in windowed mode on the secondary display, which doesn't allow me to move windows over to my primary display -- or I can run in Coherence mode (which I would prefer to!). Unfortunately, in Coherence mode the windows display is set up as one huge 3554x1178 display and the menu bar stretches from the secondary across to the primary. Hitting maximize on Outlook causes it to spread across both displays, rather than staying neatly on one. Windows thinks the secondary display is bigger than Mac OSX thinks it is, so it is possible to have windows placed in an unreachable area.

All this is before even considering what happens when I try to run a 3D DirectX app under Parallels 3.0 if multi-displays are not handled properly...

 

This is very important to me too!

Having mismatched monitors ( a MBP and 21" 4:3 external ) The coherence mode dual monitor support makes is great, but also a bit cumbersome to work with. Having apps on my second monitor artificially cut off at the bottom of the screen and in need of tweaking to match the vertical of the MBP is annoying. Also when application start maximized and span the monitors, that feature of the windows shell becomes useless. One last complaint is that if I span multiple monitors and show the start menu, I get the start menu across both screens and depending on my configuration, it runs straight through the middle of the second display!

I hope you guys can fix this for 3.0!

Love your stuff & already pre-ordered!

Thanks!!!

 

Since this was not addressed in 3.0, I would like to remind Parallels that improved support for multiple monitors with mis-matched resolutions (full/true multi-monitor support) would be greatly appreciated.

 

Chime in ...

I'd like to chime in with the same request. If I've got a coherence window open on one monitor and I maximize it, I don't want to span ALL screens ...just the one it's residing in. Essentially behave just like a Mac window. Thanks!

 

I agree, that is how we would use it on dual displays here.

 

With the added ability to handle 3D games now, it seems that we should be closer to enabling this sort of feature in Parallels. I'd like to bump this feature request and reiterate the desire to see this in Parallels.

 

First post in this forum here - and for me this is the major thing I miss. Support of my second monitor, as Boot Camp/Windows XP does it when I boot with that.

I mainly need Windows to rework PowerPoint presentations from clients and am used to have most menu windows on the right monitor and the main slide on the left. This is important for me because it makes workflow a lot faster and as in most businesses time is money.

Which means for the moment, that when I have to work a little longer than just a five minute change i boot with Boot Camp. Not the perfect solution, especially not for Parallels I would say.

So pleeeaaase!

 

Ditto, I too would like to see this implimented. Dual monitor support... come on parallels!!!

 

I'm a DJ who refuses to use a Windows PC. I've been using Mac-based DJ software for years, and cannot bring myself to run the PC karaoke software all my contemporaries and competition are using.

Unfortunately, the karaoke software that's out there is ONLY PC-based, so I've continued to use the old standby: CD+G disks and CD+G players. AARGH!!!

I just purchased a MacBook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo), and have installed Parallels 3 and Windows XP Home -- runs beautfully, I have to admit.

My goal is to continue to run the DJ software within the Mac OS, and then run the karaoke software when needed within Windows (preferably using coherence).

Here's the issue: the karaoke program requires dual monitor support. The main monitor is the operator window for the DJ, and the second monitor (which is connected with an S-video cable out of the PC's video-out port into the back of a standard television set for the singers to read the lyrics).

Is this kind of functionality possible using Parallels? I've seen some posts that say "yes, maybe," while others say "no." I'm not willing to invest in very expensive software if I can't figure out if it can be done first. My goal, of course, is to connect the external tv using the Mac's miniDVI-to-S-video adapter.

I would really, really appreciate any feedback. Other than, of course, "karaoke sucks" .

--Stubborn macDJ

 

I should add that even when the MBP is running DJ music, I want to keep the karaoke application up and running with it's singer lyrics window open on the TV screen (there's a special "idle" feature for when there's no karaoke music or lyrics playing). I never want the Mac DJ software to appear on the TV, nor the operator window of the karaoke software.

 

The current version of "Dual monitors" where both monitors are merged into one is not satisfactory.

- Its problematic that the smaller of the two decides the size of the display.
- Even more annoying is that sizing a window to full size gets you a window spreading across both displays.
- Similarly applications designed to start up center screen are also placed with center being the colliding edges of the two displays.

 

two monitors with parallels and Splitview

I've just downloaded Splitview
http://www.splitview.com/
and am having decent luck with it, just $29 for single license.
I've got my macbook pro and a second external monitor

the part it does well - maximizing a window will maximize it onto one monitor or the other and you can move windows from one or the other easily.
I had to tweak the settings to get it to accurately find the breaking point between monitors.

things it doesn't fix
despite its settings, some dialog boxes pop up centered on the entire desktop, making them hard to read as they span both monitors.
wanting two external monitors so that I can use all the real estate on my second monitor.

related tidbit
try getting the windows taskbar to set up on the left hand side of your primary monitor. then it won't show up on both of them. mac os dock on bottom.

 

Post "Cannot run multiple displays in the extended desktop mode" by ChanageAgent was moved here.

 

I strongly agree with the ideas in this thread. The way that multiple monitor support is handled now can be greatly improved. Really, it's the one thing that's detracting from the full integration of Windows and OS X right now. Having to constantly manually resize Windows applications instead of just maximizing them so that they don't cover both my monitors is very tedious.

 

It all depends upon how the software works. If it looks for two physical displays, sorry, but Parallels does not make dual monitors appear to Windows as two displays. It sounds as if this is the case.

I, for one, would be very excited to see true dual monitor support.

 

The author of the quote inside this post have been changed on the right one.
Best regards,
Alicia

Yes!!!!! I consider the lack of OSX-compliant windows behaviour in multi-monitor-mode in Coherence a bug - this is not a feature-wish!

Windows running in dual-monitor-mode inside a virtual machine is a different story all together. I can understand the wish for it, but I guess implementing that is really nontrivial.

Give us a Coherence that behaves like it should in multiple-monitor-mode in OSX first. As to the initial question from a Parallels guy: 99% of users will want a window that maximizes on its own monitor only, and want dialogue windows that opens in the center of the monitor where the parent window resides. For the few that really have use for a window spanning two monitors: make it a configurable feature.

Best
.r.