Multiple Monitors in Windows Vista Guest

[jontackabury]

I am trying to use multiple monitors inside my VMware guest to test out some multi-monitor software. This works fine in Windows XP, but doesn't work at all in Windows Vista. In the "Display" settings for the VM, I have tried "Accelerate 3D graphics" on and off, and I am forcing 4 monitors with a max resolution of 1024x768. In VMware Workstation 6.5 Windows Vista worked perfectly, but since the addition of Aero support it seems the multiple monitor support has been lost. Multiple monitor support was the primary reason I bought VMware Workstation instead of using the free alternatives, so I would really appreciate any help in restoring this functionality. Thanks!

[AnatolyVilchins]

If you terminal service into the virtual machine from a physical workstation that has two monitors using the

mstsc /span

command that was introduced with MSTSC v6 then that should get you there.

iSCSI Software Support Department

[jontackabury]

Unfortunately using the /span command just gives me 1 large monitor. I need multiple monitors inside the guest VM. This was possible with version 6.5, but is broken in 7.0.[http://www.binaryfortress.com]

[vanRijn]

Hey there. How many physical monitors do you have connected to and working on the host? And what is the host OS? And could you please attach the vmware.log for this VM? One other thing you might try... IIRC, we shipped 2 different display drivers for Vista and Windows 7--the new WDDM drivers and the old XPDM drivers. You might try switching from WDDM to XPDM to see if that helps. I think this KB article should help you: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101677....

HTH! =:)

[jontackabury]

Thank you for the information, I'll try the older video driver today. In order to generate a "clean" log, I booted up my Vista guest (on a Windows 7 host), tried to enable desktop spanning to monitor #2 in the guest and when that failed I shutdown the VM and attached the log here. I hope this log can shed some light on where the issue is, thanks!

[jontackabury]

I just wanted to let you know that the older "VMware SVGA II" driver (non-WDM) does allow multiple monitors in the Vista guest. It's not an ideal solution though, as much of my testing involves testing on multiple monitors with Aero enabled. Do you know if an updated WDM driver is planned that supports multiple monitors? Thanks!

[vanRijn]

Hey, good news! I believe that this is one issue that we're tracking internally and are working on a fix.

[jontackabury]

That is excellent news. Do you know when it will be publicly available, or if/when a beta will be available?