Full Dual Monitor Support (WinXP on OSX)

grrrr

Well I'm glad that what YOU need it for works well. How about those of us who NEED dual monitor support where stretching the screen won't help?

 

Different priorities

Presumably you folks would rather that the Parallels team spend their precious time working on that.

 

Some folks want dual monitor support, and have asked for it on this wish list. Other folks have other priorities and have asked for other things. Fine.

The continuing argument here over who needs / wants what wastes everyone's time. Video improvements are on their list, and will happen when they feel it should, and arguing over who wants it or doesn't need it wastes their time reading to see if there's anything new.

Maybe it's time we all got tired of the argument and moved on.

 

I am a little late getting to this since I just joined, but here are my thoughts.
I am waiting on the arrival of my new macbook pro which will be for my work. I plan to use mac, linux and perhaps windows. At present I spend most of my time in Linux FC6 and use the desktop effects with dual monitors. When I spin the cube, I get a new desktop spanning both monitors. So bringing this to mac if I plug it in at the office to two external monitors then I would like a similar effect. Mac spans both monitors. Turn the cube, start parallels and bring up linux guest which would span both monitors. In either the mac or linux "desktops" I could open several programs, drag windows where I want on either monitor. Shift back and forth between the two OSs, turning the cube to access what I need. This will become more important as we incorporate more mac such as streaming video into our network.
I also look forward to the mentioned 3d capabilities being worked on. Perhaps directx also?

tk

 

Yep, exactly. We would.

 

is 1680 x 2250 OK ?

Cinema HD 1680 x 1050
over
Color LCD 1920 x 1200

menu bar in middle or top

Coherence mode in beta hides windows dexsktop makes it 1680 x 1050 upper screen only

but don't rotate when on two screens in the beta

Hugh W

 

in my opinion, the most usefull way of implementing multiple monitor support is to make monitors hardware independant, with any virtual machine capable of having as many monitors as wanted. Each monitor would get his own window, and the user could place these windows as he wishes, maximising them on his actual screens in his host OS or not.

I suspect this would accomodate everyone's needs. it would allow developpers to test multiple monitor configurations although they only have one screen at the same time as allowing the lucky few with 6 screens to take advantage of al that space as they see fit.

the one issue I see is how to deal with the new coherence mode and the one virtual monitor per window concept, but I think it can be done.

just my little 2 cents.

 

I do the exact same thing. I would love to be able to use Windows on both screens.

 

I just downloaded the new Parallels Beta. I am really impressed with the "Coherence" feature. The minute I heard about it, I thought this would bring multiple monitor use to Parallels, but sadly it has not.

It is funny; it seems like Parallels acknowledges the other monitors and just refuses to show them. When I drag an application to another window it allows me to do so but hides the application on the other window. Whereas a PC, would box you in and not let you move the application beyond the physical boundries of the available monitors. Sooooo close.

To me Coherence plus multiple monitors would make Parallels a superb product, and there would be nothing stopping me from buying Parallels softwarefor my whole office!

 

I dont want full dual screen support but I would like to be able to go full screen on the second monitor like before 3049 Beta 2. Is that asking too much?

 

Yes - I'm requesting support for multi-monitor as well.

I agree with RedShark - Kudos if you guys allow multiple monitor support in Coherence mode.

Currently I run 3 Monitors on my workstation as many of my apps have numurous editors and screens that need to be open at all times. Having that same functionality on the Windows side simultaneously would be an invaluable addition to this great app.

It's really limiting having the apps locked within the confines of my middle primary monitor

Regards,

-Neil Parfitt

 

exactly what I would like too

either momitor could be full screen


BUT i coherence mode one BIG desktop over two screens
with win XP menu bar in the middle?

Hugh W

 

I would love for support for this as well. I'm currently running BootCamp, but theres even limitations in that I can't use dual screen via the s-video/rca adaptor from Apple. So maybe more specifically, if dual monitor's in winxp parallels is supported, to also allow it to be used via s-video (which should be inherent, since it works in OSX currently)

-Randall

 

I've also posted on this elsewhere on the forum I do have multiple monitor support current using an acer al2416W as the second monitor via DVI. It works "OK" but my total Windows Extended Desktop Size is limited to the vertical dimension of my primary monitor. On a MCP 15 1440x900 than means that I "lose" access to the bottom 300 pixels of my second monitor (it being 1920x1200). If the Parallels video driver could use the Apple Detect Displays service and populate its video area accordingly, this limitation could be pretty easily addressed. I believe this is how things were handled in Boot Camp v1.1.2 which did NOT have this particular limitation.

Yes, it would also be ideal for ALL extra video options to be made available, as several posers have mentioned. I haven't tested this yet but will do so presently.

And, yes, it would also be good to be able to specify where Windows app "pop up" when started; however, what I'm finding under the current setup is that each app remembers where it was last started and then re-starts itself there, if that monitor space is still avaialble. So an app that I start and drag over to monitor 2 restarts on monitor if I shut it down and then re-start it. This is the same way that things happen on Windows and should be maintained. The option for "initial" startup would be nice, so that Windows apps don't start by default in the middle of the Extended Desktop, as that puts them spanning the physical separation of two monitors.

 

Real Dual Monitor Support

I would like to add my vote for two independent monitor support. I use my laptop for giving lectures and having the overhead projector on one monitor and my laptop monitor for the other is key. Keynote and Powerpoint, just to mention two of the biggest programs, fully uses the dual monitors for presentations.

Excellent program, keep up the work. I will be happy to pay for an upgrade to get the improved features.

Jerryf

 

On a MacbookPro 15" (2GB RAM, 128 MB video) I'm using a second a second monitor (DELL 24" , DVI) for WINXP in fullscreen mode(1920 x 1200). OSX on the primary screen (MacbookPro).
This works ok but with one application in XP (ALLplan (CAD)) the performance is very low on this monitor. After attaching a smaller second monitor to the MacbookPro the performance of Allplan in XP is like it should be. I tried to reduce the resolution of the Dell monitor (as wel in OSX as in XP) but it doesn't help.

Are there issues known about these monitor with Parallels?

 

Multiple monitor support does work in Coherence Mode

I stumbled onto support for multiple monitor support in Coherence mode yesterday in build 3150. I'm not sure if it was there before. It's under the View menu->Customize->Coherence->Working Area->Use multiple displays. I tried it out and was able to put two windows from one application on different displays simultaneously.

That's what I was looking for!!! Bravo Parallels!!

 

a nice idea
but surely itt would be better to have a dedicated laptop for sales or demo work
and
with no company or personal data on it if it got to be lost, stolen or strayed

it is possible to get MS PowerPoint 11.2.4 if you need it for the Macintosh

what other software are you talking about?

Hugh W

 

Well I've tried the multi monitor support with the latest beta... but it's sooo sluggish that it's useless. Maybe because I have 4 screens on my system? Who knows.. either way it's unusable unless I leave it in single screen operation.

The machine is no sloucher - it's a Mac Pro 2.66 with 2 x PCIe 256MB Nvidia cards and 5GB RAM - the update speed when using multiscreen coherence brought me back to memories of windows 3.1 and 2 meg graphic adapters... *yawns*

-Neil