Dual monitors suggestion

Question

What would be nice would be the ability to have metro running permanently on one monitor and the classic desktop on the other.

Answer 1

This is good feedback, I will bring it up with the Feature Team.

Thanks,

David Perry

 

Answer 2

I assume you will discuss more than dual monitors.  I use three 1920x1200 monitors. So it would be nice to specify which monitor the metro should run on.

I noticed that the start screen is updated with cards for Windows 7 applications that are installed such as Office and VS2010. So, it would be nice to be able to drag-drop from the classic desktop monitor(s) to the start screen?

Answer 3

Thanks for the comments PeteJS, I am also a multi-mon user with 4 monitors in different orientations (Landscape-Landscape-Portrait-Landscape).  I'll make sure to bring this up.

Thanks,

David Perry - MSFT

Answer 4

I love metro-desktop functionality as it is now for a tablet. But...

 

With the current metro-desktop functionality my plan when working on a desktop pc is:

1) Desktop as the default view.

2) Old Desktop Start menu enabled.

3) Run Metro in a VM. (It would be nice if it were possible to link my licenses for Win8 hosting Win8 in this scenario.)

 

Dividing the two desktop paradigms over separate monitors is a great idea. I'm just not sure how I would lay it out on a single desktop pc monitor to avoid the need for a VM.

 

 

On Win7 I have about 19 programs on my start menu that I do use often. When I try to find the program I want to launch using metro on a large desktop pc screen I find that:

 

1) Metro Start screen tiles are too big, busy, or similar and I don't see them as a 'quick' list for some reason.

2) Metro Search screen... I don't recall the name of what I want to launch very quickly. I'm used to looking at a quick list and knowing the position of what I want to run. Kind of like gaming. I often don't know the name of the function I want to use, just the hotkey.

3) I understand that I will get more familiar and memorize things better after using metro for a while, but I think there's room for improvement.

4) I suggest favorite programs being pinned and positionable in list-view on the left of app search screen and don't filter them out by the search criteria.

 

 

Answer 5

What would be nice would be the ability to have metro running permanently on one monitor and the classic desktop on the other.

I found my way here to make exactly this suggestion - I'm glad I searched first. To be specific: I have two monitors, and I had the Metro UI on one, and the classic desktop on the other. However, very often when interacting with the desktop, the Metro screen would also switch to the desktop. For example, if I grabbed a window and moved it to the other monitor. It would be exactly what I want if I could lock one monitor to Metro, so that windows doesn't treat that monitor as part of the "class desktop space" anymore. Any items that I click in the metro UI that would appear on the classic desktop, I assume they would open on the "classic" monitor. Thanks!

Answer 6

This gets my vote too!

Answer 7

it would be nice to specify which monitor the metro should run on.

What's wrong with the way that it is working now?  Just click on an empty Start button (Tooltip: Move the Start Screen here).

Related to this I'm surprised people aren't complaining that they can't run Metro on more than one screen at a time.   E.g. if I wanted to make some notes in Notespace about some experience I was having on another Metro app and I was on my Tablet I would be SOL.  My Tablet isn't big enough (screen ratio 1.6) to Snap Notepace even if I would be satisfied typing in a very narrow pane.   ; )

 

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Answer 8

Just click on an empty Start button (Tooltip: Move the Start Screen here).

Related to this I'm surprised people aren't complaining that they can't run Metro on more than one screen at a time.   E.g. if I wanted to make some notes in Notespace about some experience I was having on another Metro app and I was on my Tablet I would be SOL.  My Tablet isn't big enough (screen ratio 1.6) to Snap Notepace even if I would be satisfied typing in a very narrow pane.   ; )

 

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To be totally frank here, the problem is that the "Tooltip: Move the Start Screen here" option has to be initiated upon every startup. That can be a hassle and we are here to try to make suggestions and not complaints to make Windows 8 better, right? I tried the display settings in the control panel to make the #1 monitor the default panel and it didn't help either.

I really like using the apps but, I think it would be better to have the option to allow the apps to wrap onto the next screen to see more and give the illusion of being less cluttered. Can we be able to organize them in our own categorization?

Where is the Media Player/Center Icon? Also has anybody seen wordpad, calculator...

Update: I think the bug has been worked out to have the Apps/Tiles displayed to the #1 (default) monitor now. I am also very anxious to see if they worked out the bugs from the last Media Player, that was a nightmare for real.

Answer 9

To be totally frank here, the problem is that the "Tooltip: Move the Start Screen here" option has to be initiated upon every startup.

I tried the display settings in the control panel to make the #1 monitor the default panel and it didn't help either.

The problem I have in that scenario is that Touch is FUBAR then.   E.g. it seems that my Tablet must be my primary monitor, otherwise my taps and drags on it evidently apply to the main monitor.   However, I then found out that this would be a carryover of W7 functionality.   This insight has made Touch in W7 much more useful for me (though it is weird not to have a Taskbar on the monitor directly in front of me).   It was while I  wasn't worrying about the Touch problem and trying to keep the Start Screen not be in front of me that I had your problem.   It certainly looked as if the Start Screen was locked on the primary monitor.   I will try to remember to switch my Start Screen to my secondary monitor before my next reboot to test this idea.

BTW, to avoid confusion, I suggest you ask your questions about organizing the Start Screen and changing its contents in another thread.

 

Robert
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