Is there any way to get a dual monitor view inside of a remote desktop session?

Question

I frequently have to remote into my work desktop using rdp. One pain point has always been that I have a dual screen setup at home, but am unable to take advantage of it because the rdp session only uses 1 screen. My workaround up to this point has been to open a 2nd session to s different box on the secondary monitor and work that way. Does anyone know if there is a way to get rdp to take advantage of a dual monitor setup?

Answer 1

I believe that the latest version of rdp that comes with Vista allows this.

Answer 2

You can do this by using the command line only switch /span, setup the following shortcut (assuming your Windows installation is in C:\Windows)

c:\windows\system\mstsc.exe /span

The help documentation says that the monitors must be the same resolution and colour depth. I use it on two 1280 x 1024 displays, and have used it to obtain dual screens on a Virtual PC system (Virtual Machines don't normally support multiple monitors).

Answer 3

With RDP I don't think there is a way to get a real dual minitor setup but as you've suggested you can fake it. This post discusses it: http://tech.norabble.com/2006/07/dual-monitor-remote-desktop-goodness.html

If you have version 6.0 and both monitors span the same resolution then apparently there is a more fancy way of spanning dual monitors (still effectively faking it though)... Search for "rdp Mstsc /span dual" in Google.

Answer 4

You could try LogMeIn. There's a free-forever version available which has a lot of features and supports multi monitor setups. The only thing is it's another bit of software to install on the computer you wish to control and access is made through your web browser (Which for me is a plus, but it depends on your perspective).

I've got my family and friends who have computer issues to install it and it's great, much easier than trying to decypher what they're doing over the phone.

Answer 5

Also with Windows 7 and Windows 2010 Server true dual monitor over Remote Desktop will be possible.

http://tech.norabble.com/2009/01/windows-7-remote-desktop-and-dualmulti.html

You can try the beta at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx