Dual Monitors - Running Win 8 at Home and Remote to Win 7

I am running windows 8 at home on my laptop and remoting into a machine in a closet that runs windows 7. the machine that i am remoting to is set up to run on one monitor. i would like to use a dual monitor set up at home. i am told this is possible but have yet to find a solution that works. I would like to use both of my monitors at home for the remote connection.

can anyone help?

I have tried updating the .rdp file and running multimon and clicking the use all my monitors in the remote connection display tab.

is there something i am missing?

Heather Sheidy Jolly

Posted 2013-04-29T16:22:42.480

Reputation: 21

Do you want the the remote desktop session to extend over two monitors? Or have two monitors one with Win8 and the other with the RDP into Win7? – Brad Patton – 2013-04-29T16:40:33.057

Is the remote computer Windows 7 Pro or Windows 7 Ultimate (or Enterprise)? Only Ultimate/Enterprise support multi-monitor RDP. – Darth Android – 2013-04-29T18:11:05.467

it is windows 7 professional. – Heather Sheidy Jolly – 2013-04-29T18:33:33.120

Then you will need to either upgrade it to Ultimate, or use a different technology, such as VNC. Note that the latter will require you to Hook multiple monitors up to the remote computer, even if they are not used, because VNC cannot resize the desktop to the local machine's screen size like RDP can. – Darth Android – 2013-04-29T20:01:16.537

Answers

If you have Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise as the host/remote computer, tell RDC to use all your screens when connecting:

enter image description here

All other versions of Windows 7 do not support multi-monitor RDP

Darth Android

Posted 2013-04-29T16:22:42.480

Reputation: 35 133

I have tried clicking the use all my monitors. I would like to use both of my monitors at home for the remote connection. – Heather Sheidy Jolly – 2013-04-29T17:12:35.937

Sadly this seems to have been a pain point for many years based on some threads on Microsoft's TechNET forums. It's upgrade or use something other than RDP. – Darth Android – 2013-04-29T20:02:37.887

Thank you for your help. since it's a work PC getting an upgrade is a lost cause. i will have to deal :) – Heather Sheidy Jolly – 2013-05-02T18:10:27.113

As the other answerer stated, when connecting to a remote Windows 7 PC from a Windows 7 client, the remote PC must have Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise if you want to use the /multimon feature (the client doesn't have to be Ultimate, only the remote PC). Since your remote PC is Windows 7 Professional, you will have to stick with /span. If you don't know what that is, see the instructions here.

Also, you mentioned that the client PC has Windows 8-- I read somewhere else that the version of Remote Desktop included in Windows 8 does not include the multiple-monitor feature, only Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise, and that unlike Windows 7, both the client and the server had to have the correct license. I can't find where I read that, but I thought it best to mention it as an FYI.

David Schwartz

Posted 2013-04-29T16:22:42.480

Reputation: 121