Widescreen Gaming Forum

I have fiddled with this on XP and as far as I know there is no way around it. Ultramon is only for systems with separate monitors. The TH2G makes all three monitors look like one to the system, and therefore Ultramon is useless.

By dragging the quick launch bar and language bar you can at least have all the programs appear on the center screen and on the center screen only.

You do get used to having the start menu all the way to the left though, even if it feels a bit weird in the beginning.

You can get the old quick launch back for Win7, atleast that lets one position windows on the center screen by moving the QL slider.

See this post on how to enable Quick Launch on win 7.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=442158&postcount=3

I can get the windows start menu on the centre monitor.

The key is to not use TripleHead mode and to use Nvidia's "nView Desktop manager". This does require some extra hardware though ...

My Platform:
* TripleHead2Go Digital Edition. Latest firmware (2.3.40t6.56) and Matrox powerdesk 1.03.0020.0616 2.05 ("2.05" for short). The solution also worked under the previous firmware and powerdesk.
* XP 32 bit pro.
* Two graphics cards: Nvidia GTX 260 and Nvidia 9600GT. Nvidia Driver Version 182.50.
* 2 of 2-to-1 DVI hardware switchboxes (for the second and third display). These cost me $AUD34 each.
* 3 widescreens

I use my 3 monitors in two modes:

1. "TripleHead" or "play" mode. In this mode I'm using my GTX 260 to pump a signal through one of its outputs to the TripleHead2Go hardware device which stretches the output of 5040 x 1050 across the 3 monitors. This enables me to game. The windows start menu is always on the left of the left monitor. In this mode I don't know how to move it.

2. "Independent" or "work" mode. In this mode I don't use the TripleHead2Go hardware (I just have it pass through a signal to the first monitor). Rather I use my GTX 260 to drive two monitors (with one of the signals passing through the TripleHead2Go hardware) and my second graphics card drives the third. In this mode I can get the windows start menu on the centre monitor.

Switching between the two modes takes less than 30 seconds. I don't need to unplug and re-plug anything. I don't usually need to reboot the computer. Occasionally the switch over into Independent/work mode doesn't quite take and I do need to reboot the computer. That was with the old matrox firmware and powerdesk. Only today have I finished learning how to configure the new matrox firmware (2.3.40t6.56) and powerdesk (2.05). On initial experimentation it looks solid and enables me to switch between the two modes more simply. I have a hunch that I'll never need to reboot with this update.

To switch from TripleHead/Play mode to Independent/Work mode
I:
* Close my apps.
* Hit a hot key that I had configured under Matrox that restores a saved display configuration (3 independent displays with a resolution of 1680X1050 at 60Hz each).
* Press a button on each of the two 2-to-1 DVI hardware switchboxes.

and then ... here is where the magic windows start menu moving starts ....

* Right click over the windows desktop to execute "nView properties." This brings up the Nvidia "nView Desktop manager". This is a utility that comes with Nvidia drivers. At least, that is, in the 182.50 (and some earlier) drivers. In the latest Nvidia drivers this utility did not install even though there was a cab file for it in the setup files. I rolled back to 182.50 for this reason.
* In Nvidia nViewDesktop Manager > Tools > Windows Utilities "To move your Windows icons and taskbar to a specific display, click Move to Display" > Move to Display ....
* You are presented with a drop down box listing your three monitors. Chose your middle monitor.

Done. This moves the Windows Start Menu and taskbar to the middle monitor. The side monitors have no taskbar.


The other things I do to make my Independent/work mode more productive

* Run Ultramon to have its "Smart Taskbar" create a task bar on each of the side monitors. This also keeps open application taskbar icons on their relevant monitor. Ultramon is payware.

* Verify Gridmove is running with the right template. This allows me to quickly resize windows to various portions of each monitor (The left half, the top half, the right third, etc). If I had to choose one of the 3 productivity features (central windows start bar, Ultramon smart taskbar, or gridmove) I'd choose gridmove. Gridmove is donationware.

I have a separate custom Gridmove template for TripleHead/Play mode and for Independent/Work mode. I usually don't bother with switching to the TripleHead/Play gridmove template as I generally only game in this mode. I created the templates myself and mean to get around to posting them somewhere at sometime.