Full Dual Monitor Support (WinXP on OSX)

Eru Ithildur, hello,

the post is edited.

Best regards, Alicia.

 

Thanks, Alicia, another reaffirmation of Parallels support taking care of me.

 

Using bootcamp

I can of-course only speak for myself, but I use parallels to run Visual Studio 2003 & 2005 and nothing else - now completely changing my workflow by moving to windows equivalents or near matches to my toolset for OS X is simply not worth this.

That Parallels does not support dual monitors seems very unprofessional and the current "dual monitor" implementation seems more like a beta experiment or a joke - I'm sure its very useful for many, but to me its quite annoying.

I really hope this is a priority for future releases and that it (the bug as referenced by others) at least will be fixed before the next major release. Having to pay yet again for Parallels just for this feature would be devastating to my confidence in this company.

 

The post by bick4d was moved here.

Best Regards,
Alicia

 

My solution for this is to use the new Spaces feature in OSX 10.5. Basically, i just put parallels in Single Window mode, Drag it accross both display desktops, then move the window into another "Space." Whenever i need XP, i just scoot over to that display and it's available as a big XP desktop spanned accross both windows.

Of course, this does not work with Coherence, and it probably isn't exactly what most readers are looking for, but it works for me.

 

with real multi monitoring support, parallels will surely be perfect for me

 

btw. the current vmware fusion 2.0 beta now has full multimonitoring support

 

I do Windows development with PD. Microsoft Visual Studio is much better if I can put additional debug windows onto a separate monitor. I was doing that when I switched from a Windows box to a Mac. I assumed Parallels would do the same, but I was wrong.

I saw the VMWare Fusion demo video on YouTube today. It is exactly what I'm looking for. If Parallels doesn't step up to the plate soon, I'll be switching to VMWare.

 

VMWare implementation

I run VMWare on my MacPro and Parallels on my MacBook Pro.

The new multiple monitor support in VMWare is really cool. I'd love to see the same feature in Parallels.

Your guest OS "sees" separate virtual monitors. I believe you can go up to 8 or 9 with the beta release.

I am running 2 monitors on my Mac Pro in Win XP.

I have Fusion set to a spaces environment, and both monitors are in full-screen. It looks exactly the way it does if I boot into Boot Camp.

One click of control-> and I'm into the Mac. Another click, I'm back to XP. Totally amazing.

The only other advantage that's important to me of Fusion is the ability to have 2 CPU cores instead of one. On my Mac Pro, with 8 cores, I can easily give 2 to Fusion/XP and still have plenty for Mac OS or a second virtual machine.

 

I second real multi monitor support too and here are the reasons. The current solution have some huge disadvantages:

- With a 24" and 19" screen, the start bar is cut because it is in the non visible space of the 19" screen.

- Many apps span across both screen on startup and have to be resized every time.

- Many requesters open centered between both screens and have to be moved to be readable.

- Multi display enhanced software sees a single screen only.

- With tow 24" screens the transparent 48" layer will surely eat up performance ....

If you implement this, then

- Apps should remember where they have been opened

- Screen arrangement should be possible on both directions: horizontal and vertical.

IMHO Fusion 2 brings the optimal solution for that. I'm sure that Parallels can still do it better



Thank you very much,
Harald

 

I wish Parallels had better:

- Triple monitor support with displays of different size and
- Faster coherence mode, or
- Better support for choosing which displays to run Parallels on.

All of us at work have three displays connected to our Mac Pros. But none of us have all the same size displays. For example, some have two 24" displays and one 20". Others have one 24" and two 20". But when you run parallels on a setup with different sized displays there are "dead zones" that Parallels is unaware of since it treats all monitors as one giant desktop as opposed to three unique screens. So this makes coherence and full screen modes rather unusable.

Ideally, it would be cool to be able to chose two screens for Windows and one for Mac... but it seems the only way to do that is to have Windows running in a window that spans two screens. But then dialog boxes pop-up half on each screen.

I guess I'm saying I wish the guest OS was more truly aware of the hardware it was running on.

 

There's also the issue of orientation.

In the case the user is using an external monitor rotated to portrait rather than landscape. Currently this is not supported either.

This is extremely useful for reviewing documents when you can get a full page at a time.

 

I, too, would like better multi-monitor support in parallels.

 

I am running 2 monitors on my Mac Pro in Win XP.


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Add multiple display detection to the 'Devices' menu!

Why not allow an additional display to be detected by (and devoted to) the guest OS in the same way that other hardware can be thus detected/devoted (e.g., the built-in Apple iSight)? (I.e., allow it to be enabled via the Devices menu and then fully devoted to the guest OS while invisible to the Mac OS.)

I would be particularly interested in this feature (FULL support of multiple displays for the guest OS) in, e.g., Microsoft Office PowerPoint for PC. It would be nice to view the navigation pane(s) on my MacBook display while presenting in full-screen on another display (e.g. projector).

Perhaps future updates will have this feature? Any news is welcome!

 

We are working on this direction, but do not know exact ETA

 

parallels

I think with real multi monitoring support, we can use parallels. It is working perfectly for me. It can be also supported by Mac Pro in Win XP.
_____________________________
Michel


Værkstedsinventar

Self Certification Mortgage Lenders

 

+7 for real multi-monitor support

I am suffering due to lack of true multi-monitor support in Parallels.

My colleague just started evaluating VMWARE Fusion.

FIVE more people in the office are awaiting the outcome...

No pressure ;-)

 

Testing is in progress, as we get stable build we will publish update, just to clarify I do not know ETA

 

"Testing is in progress" Seriously? This thread was started over a year ago with people asking for proper multi-monitor support, and now with version 4 just released with (apparently) no multi-monitor support you really expect me to pay $40 for the upgrade, and maybe at some undisclosed point in the future you'll support multiple monitors, and maybe it will be part of 4, or maybe I'll have to pay again? I can buy Fusion for $50 with the competitive upgrade, and it has multi monitor support now.

I know software development takes time and it can be difficult to commit to future features on a specific schedule, but it would be nice to get a commitment to delivering multi monitor as a free upgrade to people who pay for 4.0.