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I've been toying with a monitor attached to my laptop. I rather like the concept, but I find the windows settings rather limited. I looked up Ultramon, but they only offer a 30 day trial before making you buy the software. Is there any other good software for running two monitors?

What video card do you have? It might have dedicated multi-monitor support seperate from windows. That is what I use for my TV-out.

With my nVidia cards, I've always had huge problems with it detecting changes in monitor connections. I'd be interested in some third-party stuff too.

I see no dedicated controls.

Another problem I am having with multiple monitor is how some applications treat it. When I am running BF2 and I have my second monitor on, if I move the mouse over to the second monitor and click anything, it takes my game to desktop on the primary monitor.

When I am running something like a game, I need it to treat the second monitor almost like a seperate desktop all together so it doesn't assume clicking on the second desktop deselects the program running in the primary monitor.

UltraMon is about as good as it gets for improving multiple-monitor goodness, and see if you can get updated drivers.

Some games simply don't play well with multiple monitors. These tend to be the games that don't appreciate alt-tabbing. You might be better-off trying to run them in windows rather than full-screen.
I've got a Dell 2005FPW and a 2405FPW. The 2405's my primary, and I keep my browser and chat windows on the 2005. Some games prevent the mouse from leaving their interface at all, requiring a quit or alt-tab to get to your other screen, while other games let your mouse have free range and will just lose focus if you click outside. Some games have a swapping and minimizing fit if you click outside; they just aren't designed to handle it (sometimes this is on purpose: they don't want you to be able to swap to another application to run some cheat tool).

How can I force a game to run windowed rather then full screen?

Alyeska wrote:How can I force a game to run windowed rather then full screen?

The game has to support it. It'd be an option in Resolution settings. It's possible the game might not 'officially' support it, but it might have a command-line switch. But, if it's one of those games paranoid about cheat tools to the point of disabling task-swapping, it probably won't.
Most games don't run as well in Windowed mode as they do in Fullscreen, though.

Wonderful, so I am going to be limited in multiple monitor use while in a game

Vista is supposed to have some developments in this area, but for now, yes, the support for fullscreen gaming on multiple monitors is pretty horrendeous.

Yeah, I have that same problem on my end. Then again, I've learned to live with it. I've even gotten into the habit of just leaving Miranda IM open (but in away mode) along with teamspeak and task manager on the second monitor when I play anything.