Sure, the Vista computer you’re using makes a lot of calculations and handles a lot of tasks that make modern life and business possible. But you don’t spend all day looking at the CPU and chipset, do you? Of course not. Humans stare at the monitor for feedback, and controlling what and how this output displays is a very important part of computer use. The last main section of this chapter deals with changing display properties.
Figure 4-28. Configuring a maximum number of Flip 3D windows
Changing Screen Resolution
One of the most critical factors that affects Vista display is the screen resolution. The screen resolution is defined as the number of pixels (picture elements) that are shown on the monitor, represented in a reading of the number (of pixels horizontally) × (by) the number (of pixels vertically).
Most monitors today have screen resolution capabilities of at least 1,024 × 768, with fallback settings of 800 × 600 and 640 × 480. Higher-end monitors can use resolutions of 1,280 × 1,024; 1,600 × 1,200; and even 2,048 × 1,536. The higher the screen resolution, the more screen area the user sees. Users who work with a lot of open windows tend to gravitate toward higher resolutions.
There’s a trade-off however. At higher resolutions, text becomes smaller and harder to see, especially for those with vision problems. For those with perfect vision, high resolutions create tiny, tiny, tiny text, which in turn can lead to eyestrain, eventually leading to vision problems (capital I irony, huh?). Fortunately, this book gives you the tools to adjust text size, which is just one of the reasons it’s so good (even though a rather mundane discussion of screen resolution contains valuable information that will help you get the most out of your computer).
To adjust Vista text size, use the Personalization Control Panel application and then click the “Adjust font size (DPI)” link on the list of tasks to the left. Flip to Chapter 15 for the specific instructions.
At any rate, there is no ideal screen resolution; it’s just whatever works best for the individual user and what kind of work she wants to perform. One thing’s for sure, though: using a higher resolution requires more hardware horsepower than using lower resolutions, including both the display adapter and the monitor itself.
Also affecting computer display is the color depth, which represents the number of colors that can be simultaneously displayed. Color depth can range from 16 colors for standard VGA monitors to 4 billion simultaneous colors for most monitors in use today (4 billion = 232, or 32 bits’ worth of distinct colors). And as you might guess, higher color depths place higher demands on computer hardware. A video card capable of 32-bit color depth at one screen resolution may be capable of only 16-bit depth at a higher resolution. In other words, the two performance benchmarks are interrelated.
At installation time, Vista tries to detect the video adapter and monitor, and then configures the screen resolution and color depth at optimal settings. Moreover, there are fallback settings, such as installing a “generic Plug and Play” monitor, used in case hardware drivers cannot be found.
After Vista installation or after a hardware/driver update, you can change both screen resolution and color depth from the same dialog box. Here’s how:
Open the Personalize application in the Control Panel by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Personalize. Follow the Display Settings link.
In the Display Settings dialog box, choose the monitor you want to configure if multiple monitors are detected.
Figure 4-29. Changing screen resolution and color depth
Besides setting the optimal screen resolution for the particular user and work tasks, another important setting is the monitor’s refresh rate. A high refresh rate can improve your comfort level when you’re sitting in front of a computer all day.
The light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that make up your computer’s display don’t hold their images forever; the refresh rate determines how long the screen is redrawn by your video card each and every second you’re at your computer.
The lower the refresh rate, the more the image will flicker, and even though you might not notice it when staring at the screen, flicker can cause eyestrain over time. The converse is also true: the more the screen redraws itself, the less strain computer use places on your eyes.
You should, therefore, strive to set a refresh rate as high as your video card’s settings will allow. To configure Windows Vista’s display refresh rate, follow these steps:
Open the Control Panel’s Personalization application and click the Display Settings link.
Select the monitor you want to configure (if multiple monitors have been detected) and choose the Advanced Settings button.
On the Adapter tab, choose the List All Modes option. A list of all resolution/refresh rate modes supported by the monitor should appear in the List All Modes dialog box.
Now that we’ve gotten some of the basics out of the way, let’s move on to some more advanced display settings, such as having Windows Vista utilize multiple monitors at once.
Thanks to the magic of Plug and Play and the generally standardized interfaces among video cards and monitors (either VGA or DVI connections), using a second monitor for Vista output is usually just a matter of hooking up the second monitor to your computer.
Vista then does its level best to detect the new monitor and apply the video settings best suited for it, guessing at an ideal screen size, screen resolution, and color depth for the new monitor.
Figure 4-31. Choosing how to handle the second monitor
You have three choices about what to do in the New Display Detected dialog box:
Mirrored
This option simply duplicates the existing desktop on each display you connect, and it is the default option. This will be the likely choice when you’re using a laptop computer for a presentation by connecting an external projector or other fixed display such as a flat-screen monitor in a conference room.
Extended
This option extends the Vista desktop across all displays, retaining just the single logical desktop, increasing overall desktop area. Once you select it, you can move program windows between the displays.
External display only
This selection displays the Vista desktop only on the external display and not on the laptop’s native LCD. Why this option? If using the Media Center capabilities from a laptop, for example, this will likely be the best choice when playing a DVD or recorded TV program. Additionally, using “External display only” will conserve battery power by turning off the mobile PC display.
Once you make your choice from the New Display Detected dialog box, you get the chance to preview your selection. Click Apply to preview on the newly connected monitor; choose OK to confirm.
Again, the default is to mirror the display. If you cancel out of this dialog box, Vista will use the default setting.
You will see the New Display Detected dialog box only when you’re using two displays. If you’re trying to set up three or more displays, you must manually designate your primary display and apply display settings to all monitors manually using the Display Settings dialog box.
What’s nice about the New Display Detected dialog box is that Vista remembers your settings here and uses them the next time you connect that monitor. When you disconnect the recently added monitor, Vista reverts to the original display settings.
I’ve got no scientific evidence to back this up, but I’d guess that most use of multiple monitors happens on laptops, which usually come configured with an external video port somewhere in the back. Also, laptops can easily be attached to docking stations that send output to a bigger, better monitor. In other words, the practice is a little more prevalent on laptops because nothing has to be added.
This isn’t the case on most desktops, however, which about 98 percent of the time are configured with a single video card. Some video cards have the capability to connect multiple monitors, but usually a second video card is needed to send desktop output to a second monitor.
You can find more information about video cards that support multiple monitors at http://www.nvidia.com and http://www.ati.amd.com.
Here’s how to use multiple monitors to create a single logical Windows Vista desktop:
Open the Control Panel’s Personalization application and then click the Display Settings link.
In the Display Settings dialog box, select the secondary monitor. Usually, it will be displayed as “2” in the dialog box.
Choose the “Extend the desktop onto this monitor” option, as shown in Figure 4-32.
Figure 4-32. Using a single logical desktop on multiple monitors
Click either Apply or OK to commit your changes. You should now see the Start button on the lower-left side of your primary monitor, and a whole lot of desktop real estate out on your second monitor. If you’re using the Vista Sidebar, these should appear on the right side of the second monitor by default.
Multiple-monitor considerations
Speaking of setting up a desktop computer with multiple video cards to support output to multiple monitors, it’s important to note one important caveat regarding multiple-monitor use on Windows Vista.
If you want to take advantage of the Aero user interface across multiple displays (one desktop, multiple monitors), Vista requires that all video cards use the same driver. In most circumstances, you can’t even mix and match different cards from the same manufacturer.
Again, I highly recommend visiting the major video card manufacturers’ web sites before making a purchase, and furthermore, that you consider a single card with multiple video out ports for this purpose. If you’re using two separate cards, try to make sure that both come from the same manufacturer.
You can still use video cards from different manufacturers, but you won’t be able to use Aero. You’ll be limited to the Vista Basic interface.
Support for multiple monitors even extends to the use of Remote Desktop. A Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client that is using one logical desktop will still get the Terminal Services session over multiple monitors.
Configuring multiple monitors with UltraMon
It’s fairly easy to configure a Vista system to use 2 monitors, but what about 3, 4, or even 10? To be sure, some users want and need this many monitors to maximize efficiency. Another challenge of dealing with a single desktop over multiple monitors is that it can be difficult to drag and drop all the information you want to work with among the array of monitors. In these instances, third-party software can usually help.
One popular example of such a utility is called UltraMon, from Realtime Soft. UltraMon performs helpful little tasks such as adding a taskbar to each monitor, and adds a button to the title bar of every window. Users can click on the button to move the active window to a different monitor, which then lets them quickly switch among different monitor configurations. Its strength really shows when you’re using monitor configurations of more than two monitors. For more information on UltraMon, visit http://www.realtimesoft.com.
You can tailor UltraMon with keyboard shortcuts to speed things up even more. Pressing one keystroke combo can move an active window to the right display, for example, and another can move it to the left. Other options include the ability to precisely send a window to the monitor of your choosing, as shown in Figure 4-33.
Figure 4-33. Using UltraMon to enhance multiple-monitor configuration
Originally developed for older Windows operating systems, version 2.7.1 currently supports Vista with a few limitations; look for full Vista support with version 3.
Summary
So now you know how to tweak just about every aspect of the Vista desktop environment exactly to your liking, and therefore to the liking of the users in your enterprise.
In this chapter, we looked at how to control three significant areas of the user interface: the Start menu and taskbar, the desktop itself, and the display. Along the way, we covered some fairly basic stuff, such as changing the monitor’s refresh rate, but we also delved deeper into some serious Vista administration. Changing the System Tray with a registry edit isn’t something you’ll do every day in your life as a Vista administrator, after all.
I think you’ll find both the elementary and the relatively advanced topics presented in this chapter very valuable, and that you’ll even make some new friends in HR when you show them that one cool tip that will help make their desktop just so.
In the next chapter, we’ll look at some configuration techniques that will make Vista even easier to use than what comes in most default installations (you’ll learn about custom deployments later, in Chapter 8).
BrainDump 
Themes and Schemes in Vista
