The problem with MaxiVista…

…is that once you've used it you can never go back.

For those who missed my earlier review, MaxiVista is a networked virtual display driver that lets you extend your Windows desktop onto the screen of a second computer. What this means is that every morning I put my Tablet PC next to my desktop's screen, rotate the keyboard out of the way… and suddenly I can drag windows from my desktop screen onto my laptop screen. Watch the video for the full effect!

And as Scott Hanselman notes, the MaxiVista folks just came out with version 1.5. This adds new power-user features (has anyone actually expanded their Windows desktop to the theoretical maximum of 8 physical screens across 4 PCs?), plus a couple of nice usability touches. Recommended - although I'm not quite sure that I'd agree with Scott's assessment of "it's pure sex" :-)

The problem is that once you get used to all that extra screen space, you can never go back to just one display. And that's exactly what I have while using my Tablet PC at home. So this week I finally broke down and bought Dell's smallest, cheapest LCD screen. Of course, this is a low-tech hardware solution that plugs into my Tablet PC via a big thick ugly analog cable. But really, in that split second after you click "Extend my Windows desktop on this monitor", do you care how it happens? Mmmm, pixels…

Update^2: MaxiVista v2.0 lets you flip between "laptop as second monitor" and "laptop as second computer". Oh, and performance has gone from "respectably fast" to "can't tell it's not a real screen". Highly recommended.