remote desktop - RDP with multiple monitors, display preferences get reset?
2014-07
Martijn Kooij
Problem: When I connect to my pc at the office via RDP all the application windows I had previously carefully placed on either monitor 1 or 2 will be "scrambled". Either all applications show on monitor 1 and monitor 2 is empty, or they have switched 1 <-> 2.
Expected behaviour: When I connect I see all the application windows on exactly the same position and in the exact same size as I left them the night before.
I have the exact same monitors at home as I have at work: Primary 2560x1440, Secondary 900x1440.
Yesterday I tried switching the physical cables on the host machine hoping that the hardware order of the monitors was the difference. But this morning my secondary monitor was completely blank, not even the taskbar (which I had set to ONLY show on the secondary).
Somewhere there must be something to help Windows understand which physical monitor is which virtual RDP monitor is which RDP "server" monitor... Are there more options than switching the cables?
This one has been bothering me for a long long time now, I hope someone has a solution or workaround for me.
Edit I want to use both monitors, so I have checked the "Use all monitors" setting in the RDP client. For example I leave my mail and total commander on the right monitor, and visual studio and Firefox on the left monitor. When I connect to RDP I want to see those applications on the same positions and sizes.
techie007
When you RDP into a computer you're not actually looking at the same desktop/displays as when you're sitting at the console. A new virtual display (monitor) is created for RDP use, based on the client's configuration.
If you have an existing session you are taking over, it will adjust the desktop for that session to match the new display configuration. Since the new display configuration doesn't match the old one, Windows will usually just reset the icons and window locations to default to the primary monitor. Similar happens when un-plugging and hot-plugging additional monitors (like say, on a notebook).
If you want to see your actual desktop as it is when sitting in front of it, then use a different remote control package (like VNC) that uses a screen capture and scaling system of the actual console desktop.
Alternatively, if your monitors/resolutions are going to be similar, and you want to stick with RDP, then perhaps check for a desktop utility that will remember and can restore window and icon locations on command.
Some video adapter manufacturers (used to) include this in their utilities, and there's stand-alone utilities out there to do it (after a quick google - never tried this one personally).
Ivan Viktorovic
Im using different RDP parameters. Just save a RDP connection to the desktop and then open it with the editor. There are a lot of differnt setting you can make.
You are as well able to add new setting like smart sizing:i: . This setting determines whether or not the client computer can scale the content on the remote computer to fit the window size of the client computer. ( see http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/library/ff393693%28v=ws.10%29.aspx). I use this on my Notebook because it is only able to display smal resolotions.
There are a lot more interesstion parameters. May be you will find your solution there.
See http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/library/ff393699%28v=ws.10%29.aspx
user26159
I am trying to RDP from a Windows 7 Professional dual monitor physical machine to a Windows 7 Professional VM hosted on esxi 4.0.
I can get the spanning option to work to both monitors, but I have tried 3 different methods of connecting but have not been able to use true multiple monitors.
At different times, I tried checking the "use all monitors" option, command line mstsc /multimon and added the line use multimon:i:1 to the .rdp file. None of these worked. Any ideas? The physical machine can connect to other Windows 7 physical machines with true multi monitor access.
I also have the same issue when going from a 32-bit RC1 machine to a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, but not when going in the reverse direction. Here's the .rdp:
screen mode id:i:2
use multimon:i:1
desktopwidth:i:1440
desktopheight:i:900
session bpp:i:16
winposstr:s:0,1,341,118,1139,568
compression:i:1
keyboardhook:i:2
audiocapturemode:i:0
videoplaybackmode:i:1
connection type:i:1
displayconnectionbar:i:1
disable wallpaper:i:1
allow font smoothing:i:0
allow desktop composition:i:0
disable full window drag:i:1
disable menu anims:i:1
disable themes:i:1
disable cursor setting:i:0
bitmapcachepersistenable:i:1
full address:s:192.168.1.5
audiomode:i:0
redirectprinters:i:1
redirectcomports:i:0
redirectsmartcards:i:1
redirectclipboard:i:1
redirectposdevices:i:0
redirectdirectx:i:1
autoreconnection enabled:i:1
authentication level:i:2
prompt for credentials:i:0
negotiate security layer:i:1
remoteapplicationmode:i:0
alternate shell:s:
shell working directory:s:
gatewayhostname:s:
gatewayusagemethod:i:4
gatewaycredentialssource:i:4
gatewayprofileusagemethod:i:0
promptcredentialonce:i:1
use redirection server name:i:0
drivestoredirect:s:
Shinrai
Very, very after the fact, but I saw this had never been answered...
The functionality you're looking for (which normally just requires checking the 'Use all monitors' box) ONLY works if the target machine is running Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise (or Windows Server 2008 R2). This is one of the few legitimate differences between Professional and Ultimate.
Note that it doesn't matter what version is on the machine used to manage the remote session, only the target machine (although it needs to be new enough to support this, I think Vista and higher.)