Multiple monitors in Parallels 8

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ErikOlo

Bit poster
The performance on secondary displays is abysmal in Parallels 8. Dragging a window is fast on the main display, but as soon as you get to a secondary monitor the performance goes down to about 10-20 FPS (depending on hardware).

On my Retina MBP it is slowest at 10 FPS. On my Mac Pro I would estimate to about 20 FPS.

Also when you drag a window between monitors the mouse pointer snaps to the wrong location. When you release the mouse button the Window snaps back to the original monitor.

This is on 10.8 with Windows 8.

There is also a problem with mixing retina and non-retina displays where the position of the displays become incorrect, and obviously you cannot get Windows to display correctly as you can only set one DPI for all displays on Windows. This should be fixed by parallels adding an option to double the resolution on non-retina displays and scale it back to the original resolution. So a 2560x1440 display would be rendered at 5120x2880 and scaled down again to 2560x1440.
 
Same issue using Windows 7. This worked in the previous version of Parallels but as soon as I updated to 8 all hell has broken lose because of a Retina and non Retina display. I can not make them work together and am probably going back to 7 until this is resolved.
 
No need to go back to PD7, retina support can be disabled by unchecking VM Configuration > Devices > Video > Enable full resolution.
 
I tried disabling the retina support and the resolution when in full screen was still messed up, it also still had the issue of the mouse snapping all over the place after attempting to drag a window from monitor A to B, not to mention the frame rate was still pathetic on the retina display.
 
Seems to be related to the mouse pointer. Drag a window from the main monitor to the secondary monitor and stop just before the mouse pointer reaches the main monitor's border, then release the mouse, move the mouse pointer to the secondary monitor and then continue dragging the window. That works. When the mouse pointer crosses the border while dragging causes the problem. Weird thing. Reinstalling the tools and even the whole application doesn't help.
 
mouse pointer

I have the same problems with dragging windows across two monitors. Thanks for the tip about the mouse pointer. That works for me too.
 
Exact same issue

Been working with version 7 and no problems. Upgraded to 8 and whoa... Running all monitors in full screen, on my two additional monitors the graphic speed is horrible. Also, I cannot drag windows between monitors. Well you can...

You have to drag it partially over to the new monitor (keeping mouse on original monitor), then let go and move mouse to new monitor and finish dragging it over.

Is there an easy way to go back to 7?
 
Same problem as above on moving windows between displays ???

If you drag a window to another monitors, it just pops back to the original monitor from which it came. Unless you drag partial to the other screen leaving the mouse cursor on the original screen and then let up and drag the rest of the way to the new screen?

Has anyone found a work around or fix to this annoying issue?
 
Similiar issue

Second monitor has really bad lagg. Any windows dropped on it just rubber band back to MBP screen. Nothing sticks to the second monitor.

Problem code : 85176-07901
 
However

However I must say the mouse responsiveness/weirdness that this creates is probably worse than the windows not moving correctly between monitors. Feels like my mouse battery is getting flat (which it's not)
 
I'm having major issues with this as well using Windows 8/Parallels 8. Didn't Parallels test multiple monitors before shipping?

Also, when restoring a virtual machine, it seems to forget the monitor configuration (I just get linen on the secondary display).
 
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And another thing . . .

My Mac: MacBook Pro with Retina display

In addition to the dual-monitor weirdness outlined here I have encountered the following bugs:

* Dragging files between Windows Explorer windows where one is located on monitor 1 and the other on monitor 2 does not work.

* The resolution and monitor position settings are not remembered between boots of the virtual machine.

* Windows Explorer takes between 10 to 20 seconds to open.

Wow, I am kicking myself for downloading P8 on its first day of release. I got suckered by the claim of support for Retina display.

Today I have spent over an hour on tech support call with no resolution to the above issues. The process of requesting a refund was relatively pain free. Version 7 is now reinstalled and I'm going to be staying there for a while until version 8 has these issues resolved.
 
Same issues and regret as described above. I'm running Mountain Lion, Parallels 8 - full screen, Windows 7, MBP (non-retina), thunderbolt display. I upgraded to P8 with the hope that my second monitor's screen flicker issue would be fixed (P7 workaround: disable 3D support). So, first thing I tried to do after upgrading was to simply drag a window from my main monitor to my secondary monitor (MBP). As I broke the barrier from one monitor to another I noticed some hesitation/dancing in the dragged window and after releasing the window I watched the window bounce back to my main monitor. I tried disabling retina support and now when I drag a window to my second monitor I end up with two mouse pointers. The white mouse pointer is at my orignal location (PC?) while the black pointer (MAC?) is at the center of the screen (still tracks the X axis). I hope this gets fixed very soon.
 
Can't move to other monitor -

I had this same problem too. Didn't matter which monitor a window originated. Moving to the other one would not work. Was one of the reasons I went back to PD7.

79460-38765 was my support code.
 
Same issue here.

Windows 7
Monitor plugged into MBP 13"

Can no longer use the external monitor.
As previously reported, dragging windows from the main (mbp) monitor to the external monitor causing mouse pointer to snap back, and move the window to a random location

This was working in v7 - wish I never upgraded!

Seriously, at what point did it seem that it was a good idea not to test this?!
 
Not sure if I want to downgrade to P7 and mess things up even further. Performance is horrible, with smart mouse off you "can" work somehow. I don't know how it happened but yesterday the whole day, performance of the secondary screen and the mouse (in smart mouse mode off) seemed to work fine and fast. The only thing I remember was that I switched to a different user and got asked from P8 if I want to be in presentation mode. Not sure if this was responsible because I cannot really repro it. It worked as it should yesterday all day long and today I needed to reboot and all back to "horrible". If someone has a workaround, please let me know. I really hope an update is coming really soon.
The crap I got from support "Windows 8 isn't supported yet" makes me smile as it seems to be the same on Windows 7 guests. Hopefully they get their act together soon because luring paying customers into buying their new and shiny product before it is available but without support is just getting me mad...
 
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