Vista Tutorial - Vista multi monitor bug!!!

I think I've found a bug with the way Vista handles dual screens and wallpapers.

I'm sure there are PLENTY of us who have dual monitors. For those of you who do, try this:

1. Make sure Aero is enabled, and that your taskbar is always transparent.
2. Download any dual screen capable wallpaper program. For instance, Ultramon, DisplayFusion, etc.
3. Set a DIFFERENT WALLPAPER PER MONITOR. Make sure to do this.
4. Observe?

You'll see THROUGH the transparency of the taskbar that the wallpaper schema is screwed up. There is a small part of the wallpaper that is cut off at the bottom right, around the system tray icons, and looks like the wallpaper repeating, or is confused with the wallpaper on the secondary monitor.

Here is the only way to work around this that I've found out so far:

1. Setting the taskbar to Autohide solves the problem (wallpapers display behind taskbar properly).
2. Changing the schema of monitors within the display properties. If Monitor 1 is on your right and Monitor 2 is on your left, you will have this problem. If Monitor 1 is on your LEFT and Monitor 2 is on your RIGHT, the problem will be solved.
3. Disable dual screen (not feasible).
4. Disable dual wallpaper ability (again not feasible).

Let me know what you think! If there is a way around this, I'd love to hear this. I've been literally fighting with this all weekend. Not having transparency in Vista sorta takes the life out of it.

This is so important to you, to have different wallpaper on two monitors,
that you'd spend an entire weekend working on it?

Wishing I had that much leisure time,

Tom Dacon
Dacon Software Consulting

"ajm786" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:2c6a6f40373dbedfec280fd42f927843@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Well that was a large part of it, yes, but not the ENTIRE weekend (unless you want me to include sleeping time, eating time, bathroom breaks, etc.). I thought maybe in the interest of finding a fix for a bug that's sure to be bothering lots of people other than myself.

In general, I was trialing Vista for use in a production environment, so, yes, that was part of the issue. It wasn't leisure time, that's for sure, and frankly, not part of the discussion.

More information.

I have 2 monitors. One is 1600x1200, which is the main one (monitor 1). The other is 1280x1024, which is the secondary one. As stated previously, the secondary is to the left of the primary.

Here is a screenshot. Explanation below.

http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?im...rencybuqy6.jpg

Ignore the black border around the 1600x1200 image on the right, it's the way the image is; same goes for the black bars on the top and bottom of the left, since it's a 1280x1024.

Bottom right of entire screenshot. See the grass through the taskbar? It's supposed to show through the ENTIRE taskbar, not just the bottom right. Now, look at the Ultramon Smart Taskbar on the left. Notice something wrong? It's showing the bottom of the RIGHT SCREEN WALLPAPER (notice the green grass color).

This is what I'm talking about. It does this no matter what drivers I use, no matter what program I use for dual-wallpaper, and no matter what options I set.

If anyone knows how to point me in the right direction concerning this, I'd appreciate it. And show me some screenshots if you say that there's no bug.

I am able to recreate your problem.

I use DisplayFusion to put 2 different backgrounds on my dual monitors.

I haven't been using any program to span the monitors lately, although I
have tried Ultramon and Multimon before.
I DL'd Multimon, and tried it, but it's doesn't have the transparency.
I DL'd Ultramon 3.0.2, which is a beta for Vista.
It shows the transparent background of screen 1 on screen 2 and vice versa.
Like your photo.
I was able to swap the screen 1 and screen 2 in the Ultramon Display
Settings
Actions - Swap Position with monitor...

this put the proper background behind the taskbar, but I would have to
physically move the monitors around, to get the mouse to move the correct
direction. You might try that.
Since this is a beta, you might discuss this problem on their forum
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon...?tmpl=UltraMon


--
Vista Home Premium 32 SP1
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
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"ajm786" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:4c59c2e697ebed3d4fef70495f1153ed@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

It looks like the issue is a Vista one, because very frequently on the Ultramon forums, the developer blames Vista as being the issue. He says he can do nothing about it.

"ajm786" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:82e1cb7228f743d2195a41e885b97934@xxxxxx-gateway.com...
I use DisplayFusion and don't have the problem, so it is certainly not
'universal'..


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default...help&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

Mike, I'd really appreciate it if you could post a screenshot. In addition, I'd like you to please give me some specs on your rig.

I really don't know what else to do, I tried everything. I did clean installs of Vista, drivers, all kinds of dual monitor wallpaper programs, everything, and nothing seems to help.

Is this being copied/interfaced from Vistax64.com? My thread is located
there, and now I see it here!!!

At any rate, I'd like to see some screenshots of those who say they are not
having the issue, so that I can see what I might be doing wrong. I already
exhausted everything I could possibly do, and that includes reinstalling
Vista from scratch.

I've spoken to a number of devs for multi monitor wallpapers. One of those is called John's Adventures Wallpaper Switcher.

In a thread, located here, he noted that it's most likely Vista's fault that this is happening. Just so you know, from my research, this is a genuine VISTA bug. It's not any wallpaper program's fault. Bottom line:

Windows does not tile/stretch/crop wallpapers correctly IF the SECONDARY SCREEN IS TO THE LEFT OF THE PRIMARY (through display properties, monitor 2 is to the left of monitor 1). I ruled out nVidia drivers or any other 3rd party program, because it does this without any 3rd party software. Once you move the secondary screen ANYWHERE ELSE OTHER THAN THE LEFT SIDE, the wallpapers are rendered CORRECTLY, and you will get proper transparency through the main taskbar.

The current workarounds:

1. Enable Auto Hide for the main taskbar.
2. Make the left monitor (monitor #2) the primary, but move the main taskbar to the right monitor.
3. Disable transparency system wide (ignore the problem)
4. Use Windows wallpaper, and set the wallpaper position option to the first one on the left. For some reason, this is the ONLY setting that works properly in the entire scenario.