The Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was a bit of a nightmare when used on multiple monitors with the taskbar stretched across both displays, and offered no obvious reasoning behind the odd design. Luckily for us (meaning the collective Windows user base), Microsoft has confirmed via their Windows 8 Blog that positive changes will be coming to the experience. But that doesn’t mean they are going to stray too far from the Windows 7 multi-display formula.

Basically, the way Windows 8 is displayed on multiple monitors completely depends on your unique preferences when interacting with the new software. You can have the Metro Start screen on one monitor with the classic desktop view on the other. You can also have the classic desktop view on two monitors or the Metro screen stretched across both monitors. Of course, you can take any combination of the two and display them on three, four, or more screens.

Customization has been improved as well. Microsoft has enabled smart-selection for portrait-style monitors, improved shared corners, allowed more than one image as a desktop background, and the option to span one panoramic image across multiple monitors. Improvements have been made to the taskbar as well, providing the option to set a main screen to hold all your open app icons, or span the taskbar across all monitors and display app icons on whichever screen holds the corresponding open window.

But there’s more. Gestures are accessible from each monitor, which means Start, Charms, and Settings can be opened by moving your mouse (or finger if your PC is touch-enabled) into the appropriate hot corner. You can also drag-and-drop apps from monitor to monitor, a feature that works with both full-screen and snapped apps.

So it looks like Microsoft will finally do right by their customers with Windows 8, putting the decisions in the hands of their users. The new multi-display functionality allows for any number of configurations and can even keep the Metro Start screen out of the way for those Windows purists who can’t stand innovation.

The post Multiple monitor improvements are coming to Windows 8 first appeared on Techerator.

DisplayFusion also lets you assign hotkeys to quickly manage windows, which is a great compliment to Windows 7’s built-in window management features like Aero Snap. For aesthetics, you can set different backgrounds for each display and even have separate screen savers.

In the recently released DisplayFusion 3.3.1, Start buttons were added to secondary taskbars. While I’m sure this will be a useful feature for many people, I don’t even use my original Start button (thanks to Launchy).

Removing the additional Start button is actually very simple, although it isn’t in the Settings window where I expected to find it.

To remove the Start button from a DisplayFusion taskbar, just right click the task bar, and select Multi-Monitor Taskbar –> Start Button –> Disabled.

That’s it! To re-enable the Start button, just repeat the process and choose Automatic.

The post How to Remove the Start Button from Secondary Display Taskbars in DisplayFusion 3.3.1 first appeared on Techerator.

Adding panels to a secondary monitor is not difficult, but is not particularly intuitive either.  Here’s how to do it:

1. Right click on any panel and select New Panel. By default, this will probably create a Panel on the right side of your primary display.
2. Right click the newly created Panel and select Properties.
3. Set Orientation to Bottom and uncheck the Expand button.  This will create a small movable Panel at the bottom of your primary display.
4. Drag the new Panel to your secondary display, allowing it to automatically dock to the bottom of the screen.
5. Right click the Panel and select Properties again.
6. Check the Expand box and click Close.  Now that you have a full length Panel on your secondary display, we need to make it display a list of your open applications.
7. Right click the Panel and select Add To Panel.
8. Type Window List into the search box and click the Add button.
9. If necessary, you can adjust the position of the Window List by grabbing the far left end and sliding it to a desired location.

There are dozens of additional items you can add to your newly created Panel, so feel free to play around with it and come up with an ideal customized setup.

Have any tips on creating the perfect workspace?  Share them in the comments!

The post How To: Add Panels (Toolbars) to a Secondary Display in Ubuntu 9.04 first appeared on Techerator.