ATI Catalyst setting to stretch Windows XP start bar across both displays

I have a Lenovo T400 laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series video card, using the ATI Catalyst Control Center to span my Windows XP display over the laptop display and a Dell flatpanel LCD.

This works fine, but I'm used to NVIDIA multi-desktop that let me control the "Start bar" to either exist on only 1 screen... be duplicated on both, or (what I want), stretched across both.

Is this possible with the ATI card/Catalyst Software? If not, are there any utilities out there that will handle this for me?

That is, what I have:

+----------+      +----------+
|          |      |          |
|  Lenovo  |      |   Dell   |
| (primary)|      |          |
+----------+      |          |
|Start Tray|      |          |
+----------+      +----------+

And this is what I want:

+----------+      +----------+
|          |      |          |
|  Lenovo  |      |   Dell   |
| (primary)|      |          |
+----------+      +----------+
|Start     |      |      Tray|
+----------+      +----------+

scunliffe

Posted 2009-10-05T17:25:13.500

Reputation: 1 508

Answers

There are a couple of utilities that allow you to span the taskbar over a multimonitor setup, but with all these programs start button and tray will remain on the default display.

Look up MonMan, UltraMon, DisplayFusion or Oscar's Multi-Monitor TaskBar and take your pick.

Edit: and then there is Actual Window Manager (shareware), which will span the taskbar over multiple monitors with a start button on each monitor.

Molly7244

Posted 2009-10-05T17:25:13.500

Reputation:

Tried MultiMon above - works for the most part with a few issues. WinKey+M doesn't minimize on the 2nd monitor, and Right-Click -> Close on the 2nd taskbar doesn't always work, nor does the mouseover on the time to get a today's date tooltip. Gonna try some of the other ones too. – scunliffe – 2010-06-10T16:53:13.513

@Molly Hope you don't mind, but I added some hyperlinks after reading this on meta: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/570/editing-based-on-so-reputation/24732#24732

– alex – 2009-10-06T14:30:39.470

not at all, i was just in a bit of a rush this AM, thanks :) – None – 2009-10-06T14:33:17.173

@Molly No problem, glad I could help :) – alex – 2009-10-06T14:40:13.277

1I have used and like Ultramon. – MrChrister – 2009-11-06T17:28:39.973

My version of Catalyst (2009.0714.2132.36830) does have the stretch horizontally option. Right click on the red displays in the white background - not the blue numbered displays on the gray background. That's where you'll find the option.

Cybergy

Posted 2009-10-05T17:25:13.500

Reputation: 11

By default, windows only puts the start bar on your monitor tagged as "Default Monitor" "Primary" or "1"

Also, Windows does not have an option to put it on both screens. The two screens would have to act as one screen within windows to get it to do so.

To stretch your start tray across both monitors, ATI would have to have that in it's desktop options. I am not familiar with ATI so I can not tell you where to find them, but there should be a help file that could assist you with that.

Steve K

Posted 2009-10-05T17:25:13.500

Reputation: 61

The 'Stretched Horizontally' setting in the Catalyst Control Centre should cover this with no problem :)

Edit : Make sure the Control Centre is in Advanced View and look for the Display Manager section. More info here : http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2F2008%2Fs1902%2F13s02%2F13s02.asp

MartW

Posted 2009-10-05T17:25:13.500

Reputation: 1 852

yeah, no luck. no option for stretching horizontally. – scunliffe – 2010-04-05T15:32:29.473

where is this option? I don't see any option for this in my Catalyst Control Center? – scunliffe – 2009-10-05T18:12:08.177

Hmm, not sure what that link was meant to point to, but it only shows a truncated article about the general concept of dual monitor setups..

As for the "stretched horizontally" option, I don't see it anywhere in the dialog. Here's a screenshot of the dialog: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/339/noscreenstretch.png

– scunliffe – 2009-10-06T13:05:04.037

On that screen you're on, right-clicking on the picture of the monitor representing your secondary monitor should give you a menu including the option "Stretch horizontally onto..". I'm not sure if it works if the two screens have differently resolutions, though - I've only used it on two identical TFTs – MartW – 2009-10-06T16:23:04.273