Multi-monitor fullscreen mode compatibility with Virtual PC 2007

Just wanted to take some time to highlight a minor feature of Virtual PC 2007.  With Virtual PC 2004 we heard a lot of feedback from users running on multi-monitor systems that wanted to be able to keep a virtual machine in fullscreen mode on one monitor while working with the host operating system on the other monitor.  This was not possible with Virtual PC 2004 (whenever you took focus off the virtual machine, it would minimize) but is now possible with Virtual PC 2007.  Enjoy!

Cheers,
Ben

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2007
  I Usually connect to running vpc's using the remote desktop as I am under the impression that this is faster.

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  That's brilliant! I always wanted support for full-screen on a second monitor!

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  It's working great so far - no matter what monitor the fullscreen resides on.

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  VPC 2007 still struggles from an extrememly poor user experience.  Why on earth do I have to do so many things manually and seperately? Being forced to dig through the help files is just awful.  Installing a guest OS should be so much simpler.  Instead, it's broken up into a completely seperate step that is very confusing.  I have to drag something onto a CD or floppy symbol at the bottom of the window?  Ridiculous.  The wizard that creates a new virtual machine should walk me through everything, including installing a new OS.  KEEP IT SIMPLE. A usability expert really needs to get their hands on this product and streamline the workflow.  It's a struggle.

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  This is great... Definitely makes for a much-improved experience of working with a virtual machine.

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  That's a great improvement! Will we ever be able to use multiple monitors for a single VPC instance?

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  Dan Maltes: Perhaps the wizard could offer to take you a bit further, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume a person interested in using Virtual PCs... um... knows something about setting up PCs.  I find mounting an ISO is a lot easier than digging through my CD cases for an OS installation CD. :)

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  Working great thanks. Not to sound ungrateful, but how long until VPC supports multiple monitors for the client OS?

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2007
  Dan Maltes - I actually agree with your assessment of the new virtual machine wizard.  We've been doing a lot of usability analysis of this area for the upcoming Windows Virtualization release.  However, due to the need to balance resources we decided to not make significant user interface changes to Virtual PC for this release. Nick Pearce - We have no immediate plans for this, but if you are running Vista inside the virtual machine you can connect via remote desktop and use the '/SPAN' parameter to get a multi monitor desktop. Cheers, Ben

• Anonymous
  February 22, 2007
  Ben Thanks a lot, I'll try /SPAN. Another reason to move to Vista. I know tools such as MaxiVista can help too. Let me also elaborate on the need for multi-displays in VPC. Platforms such as SharePoint can only run on W2K3. When I want to use XP or Vista as my primary OS, VPC is the ideal tool to support a W2K3 development environment. I find that for serious development, going back to one monitor from 2 or 3 feels so primitive! Thanks for the work-around. Keep up the good work. Cheers Nick

• Anonymous
  February 26, 2007
  Is this a feature that must be enabled?  When I run a VM in full-screen mode, it still minimizes when accessing the host OS...

• Anonymous
  February 27, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 27, 2007
  When working in virtual pc with guest os win98se host winxp, i full screen it on the primary display, but if i try to run any applications/games that change the resolution, both montiors primary and secondary are effected. Like vpc monitor makes host os monitor go funky when the game/program makes vpc change resolutions, is there a setting to fix that? also, you should really emulate a better video card. how hard would a 16mb riva TNT chipset be to emulate on all these new 256mb-512mb video direct x 9 cards

• Anonymous
  March 07, 2007
  Odd thing: Using three monitors arranged like: [ 1 ][ 2 ] [ 3 ] When placing a VPC window in [ 3 ], it DOES go full screen when asked, however the placement of the monitors suddenly changes, to be like: [ 1 ][ 3 ] [ 2 ] IOW, moving the mouse from left to right caused it to move to monitor 1 to monitor 3 and then to monitor 2... Placing the VPC on montor 1 or 2 works as you'd expect...

• Anonymous
  March 08, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 21, 2007
  The comment has been removed