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Dual monitors, Remote Desktop, and PCI adapters 2

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PPettit

IS-IT--Management
Sep 13, 2003
511
US
I've never dealt with a dual monitor setup before, so bear with me.

Where I work, we do a lot of work on our local desktops and on a Terminal Server. Switching back and forth between desktops all day is starting to become a nuisance. I'm thinking about installing a dual-port video card in each workstation along with a second monitor. This way, we could have the local desktop in one, and Remote Desktop in the other. My main questions is this: Can I run Remote Desktop in full-screen mode on the second monitor or does it have to be in "windowed" mode? I don't really need/want to extend the desktop across two monitors. I just want Remote Desktop to run full-screen in one monitor while the local desktop runs in the other.

On a related note... anyone have a recommendation for a good dual-DVI card for standard PCI (not PCI Express or AGP)? The PC's are Dell Optiplex 170L's running Windows XP.
 
I've just spoken to a colleague who runs Terminal Server and has two monitors and she says yes, you can run it full-screen on one with your desktop on the other.

As for which card, my answer would be "the cheapest you can find". If you don't need high 3D performance then any modern card will be good enough for your 2D needs.

Regards

Nelviticus
 
Thanks for the answer, Nelviticus. That's exactly what I wanted to hear.
 
I just thought I'd post a follow-up in case anyone cared to know.

I started with a Diamond Multimedia card (S9250PLDM128- Radeon 9250SB Edition) from NewEgg. As I came to find out from Diamond support, the card has a known defect that won't allow the second monitor to operate at any resolutions other than 1024x768 or 800x??? (I can't remember exactly, but it wasn't 800x600).

I finally just called up my Dell rep and she recommended VisionTek ATI Radeon x1300 cards. I got two standard PCI cards (for the 170L's) and 2 PCI Express x16 cards (for some Optiplex 745's).

The cards are working great so far. All of them can do 1280x1024 on both monitors at the same time which is just what I wanted. I also discovered that ATI has a utility called Hydravision which allows me to set which monitor an application goes to when it starts up. The only annoying thing about this is that "right-click" menus (and maybe even all types of pop-ups) will always pop up in the primary monitor even if you triggered them in the secondary monitor.
 
to add to this topic. We have a dual monitor setup where i work and we are moving towards using terminal server. Is there a way to extend terminal server rdp session across both monitors or are we SOL?

thanks

-drew
 
Apparently, the new version of Remote Desktop will allow this. I haven't tried it because I uninstalled version 6.0 when I discovered the way it handled logon credentials. Basically, it was forcing all of my people to log on twice because I don't allow stored credentials.

KnowledgeBase article:

RDC 6.0 for Windows XP (32bit):
 
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