Controlling the Display and Monitors with Windows Vista - Using Multiple Monitors Manually
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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
The screenshot shown in Figure 4-33 is from Windows XP, of course, but the application behavior should be the same on Windows Vista.
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).
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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