Problems with multiple displays - workstation 9 hasn't fixed anything

[John_Leask]

This has been something of an ongoing issue for me for many version of Workstation, and it never seems to get fixed. The basic issue is that workstation has multiple ways to mess up the layout of my guest's displays, which in turn messes up the layout of the apps I run in the guest.

Host and guest are currently both Windows 7x64, though this has changed over the years...

I normally only run a single VM guest, and want it maximised over both my displays. Normally I use the 'minimise' button on the vmware toolbar to get back to the host, and later, when switching back to guest, I click on the app in the guest on the windows task bar, which brings it back to full screen mode, with both displays as they were. This is fine, WHEN IT WORKS.

The issues I have with this are:

1) No way to configure the guest to start up with both displays enabled in full screen mode. There seems to be no indication this will ever be fixed - it has been reported in this forum often enough.

2) When the guest gets locked from user input timeout, the secondary display blanks, and on logging in again it has been removed, moving all apps to the primary display. Might actually happen when the host blanks the displays for power saving.

3) There is no way to stop the screen layout getting messed up when you exit full screen mode. If you use the 'Exit full screen mode' button, the now windowed guest seems to retain the full width of both screens, but it moves all apps into the area of a single display, leaving the other display's area blank. If you then return to full screen mode, it activates just a single display, and you need to cycle the other display to activate it, but by this point all apps are messed up.

4) When I run directX full screen apps on the host that use just the primary display (so the secondary display is still visable, but is showing what was on it before the app started, this invariably messes up workstation, such that on exiting the app and returning to workstation, the primary display for the guest has shrunk, such that I now have the hosts taskbar showing too, and in the remaining area the guest (with it's task bar offset for the smaller resolution now shown in the guest). The only way to get back to normal is to exit full screen mode, and re-enter it, which loses the secondary display, and so messes up the guest's apps. Funily enough, as long as I only minimise the directX app, raher than exiting it, workstation retains it's correct layout.

5) Other layout messups where workstation reverts back to a single windowed 640x480 (or perhaps 800x600) display, utterly messing up everything I'm doing in the guest - not sure what causes it to mess up like this, but it's a real pain.

I've pretty much given up hoping these issues will ever be fixed - I and others keep reporting them, version after version, and nothing ever seems to change.

Is it too much to hope that you can add a way to specifiy the number of displays, and resolution of each, and have workstation retain that no matter what the host switches to?

Anyone got any experience of HyperV? I'm wondering if that would work better for multiple displays?

Thanks.