Vista MCE on dual-screen system

[seamas77]

Hi All,

I'm looking at running a secondary screen of my primary system (Vista Ultimate) and using MCE on that screen. The only problem is that when you run MCE on a dual-screen system you lose focus on the non-MCE screen, and you can't navigate back to it without:

a) Minimising MCE
b) Closing MCE
c) Running MCE in a window rather than full-screen

Has anyone tried this setup with any success?

Cheers!

[Croc]

Originally Posted by seamas77

Hi All,

I'm looking at running a secondary screen of my primary system (Vista Ultimate) and using MCE on that screen. The only problem is that when you run MCE on a dual-screen system you lose focus on the non-MCE screen, and you can't navigate back to it without:

a) Minimising MCE
b) Closing MCE
c) Running MCE in a window rather than full-screen

Has anyone tried this setup with any success?

Cheers!

yeh same problem here
i still can't believe they didin't do that any better

[jollster101]

This has been something that has occurred since MCE05. It can be done but not as a general thing as you are hoping. Some people have created a hot key that effectively simulates pressing Alt - Esc which takes the focus away, others dont run MCE at full screen and instead expand the window with a bit more messing around to fill the screen but isnt focused as it isnt full screen.

It is a pain but there are workrounds to it. I presume you could assign a remote button to do what you are after but as I said it isnt an out of the box solution.

[fjdrasch]

With the focus on full screen Vista MCE, type Alt-Tab to shift focus back to the other desktop monitor. You can then still run MCE full screen and work on the desktop monitor.

[Pointless]

Hi, I've written a little program to show VMC full screen on the second monitor without it capturing the mouse. I'd like to get a few people to test it before I release it on the world, so if anyone wants to test it out, send me an email at pointless2345@yahoo.com.au and I will send you a copy.

Gary

[gil]

i have exactly the same prob here , i run MCE on a second screen in the front room but its a nightmare to do

my method is this and i`d appreciate any thoughts you may have

1 i have the second screen set up as extend to second monitor
2 i start MCE
3 it appears on PC monitor
4 i move MCE off PC monitor and slide it to the right and off the screen
5 i go into front room with mouse and maximise MCE

trouble is once done , i to lose the use of my PC`s normal functions on my PC monitor

if i want control back i have to take the mouse back into the front room and shut MCE off there

my thoughts were Nvidia drivers and the fact that the drivers are stil not telling the vid card to use its onboard processing , instead the machine is doing most of the processing...thats what i had read but after reading above seems its a common problem , drivers may not be the issue ???

ps
alt + tab just wont work for me , if i try i get a garbled PC monitor screen that flashes and jumps about like mad ...now that is a driver issue LOL

[flagger]

before i went to SLI (dual vid cards) and therefore limited to 1 monitor, I had a dual screen setup. I found that alt-tabbing worked fine, but if the VMC window was in fullscreen mode, everytime you would focus or unfocus it, it would reset aero which takes 2-3 seconds. Highly annoying. I also found that in full screen mode, you could not move the mouse out.

In the end, i just left VMC in window mode and dragged it so it filled the screen, but it still had the big fat borders that vista loves (and i detest).

(on a side note, I found that VMC does not like SLI much as well. If you use anything other than single card mode as the default setting for SLI, VMC craps out with only half the screen rendering and the overlay controls not even working. Sometimes it even crashes the whole desktop, and i have to do a hard system reset. No idea why it would depend on the SLI setup, as WMP works just fine. So looks like for every game i want to play, I may have to define a custom profile to tell it to use SLI rendering.)

Originally Posted by gil

alt + tab just wont work for me , if i try i get a garbled PC monitor screen that flashes and jumps about like mad ...now that is a driver issue LOL

have you tried the latest drivers for your vid card? I havn't had that problem at all on my system, except for aero resetting itself (aero off when VMC focused and full screen, aero on when VMC unfocused and still full screen)

[gil]

i have tried every driver that is recomended mate , all seem unstable in certain circumstances

the last time i tried a new vid driver i ended up with the BSOD bad_pool_call error and no matter what i did to rectify it just would not boot into Vista , all i could get was safe mode

in the end and after 4 or 5 hours of constant fighting i gave in and re-installed Vista , which is something i dont like doing , install is fine its setting everything back up again

at the moment i`m using the standard drivers that Vista downloads from MS 7.14 i`m to scared to try 15 as i doubt it will help much

forceware and you name it i have tried , for now i`l live with it , at least i can boot and eventually get VMCE working , all be it in an unorthadox fasion

damn Nvidia for not dringing out a proper set of drivers that arnt beta and fully work as they should

[jollster101]

Originally Posted by gil

i have tried every driver that is recomended mate , all seem unstable in certain circumstances

the last time i tried a new vid driver i ended up with the BSOD bad_pool_call error and no matter what i did to rectify it just would not boot into Vista , all i could get was safe mode

in the end and after 4 or 5 hours of constant fighting i gave in and re-installed Vista , which is something i dont like doing , install is fine its setting everything back up again

at the moment i`m using the standard drivers that Vista downloads from MS 7.14 i`m to scared to try 15 as i doubt it will help much

forceware and you name it i have tried , for now i`l live with it , at least i can boot and eventually get VMCE working , all be it in an unorthadox fasion

damn Nvidia for not dringing out a proper set of drivers that arnt beta and fully work as they should

I am surprised that System Restore wouldn't roll back the driver changes (although I never use it).

True Image would have solved it no problem, 10 minutes after installing the troublesome driver you would have been back up and running in Vista bliss once more. Before I install any driver updates or even MS updates (other than Bit Defender updates), I take an image and then go from there. The 5 mins it takes to create a True Image is nothing in comparison to the headache if something breaks.

Hence, your 4 or 5 hours of constant fighting would have meant more time down the pub.

[Revolution]

flagger to get rid of the large borders in mce

1. right click and select personilize
2. click Window Color and Appearance
3. open classic apperance property (at the botton of the screen)
4. click advanced
5. change the item drop down menu to border padding and set the value you want
0 is a low as it goes

[flagger]

cool thanks revolution.

also for you sli users out there that are having problems with VMC when you have your sli performance mode set to anything other than single GPU, there is a workaround:

1. goto the manage 3d settings in the nvidia control panel, then programs settings tab.
2. add a profile. Locate ehshell.exe in c:\windows\ehome
3. change the sli performance mode to single GPU.
4. hit apply

this way you can keep the default SLI performance mode to split frame or alternate rendering.

[sdy0000]

i'm using the same setup and i just hit the "windows key" button to have control of the mouse or keyboard in my primary display. this keeps the media center in my extended display maxmized. when i need to control the media center again, i just click the screen or hit a button in my remote.

hope this helps.