Sunday, April 22, 2007

Want to use Remote Desktop to Span Monitors?

Today's tip comes from one of the writers on the SBS team. Thanks Stephen!

To make your Remote Desktop connection span multiple monitors, try this command line:
"mstsc %nameOfPc% /span"

Hope this helps!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you - I didn't know that switch existed

Anonymous said...

/span only seems available on the Vista version. :(

Sean Daniel said...

Yep, sorry for the confusion, this is an new feature to remote desktop in Vista.

Anonymous said...

No! It works in XP as well!

You'll need the new version of the RDP client, though; seach for KB925876.

Despite the documentation's claim that "new features... are available only when the remote computer is running Windows Vista", monitor spanning works when the remote computer is running XP.

Sean Daniel said...

Awesome! You learn something new every day,

here is the direct link to the KB mentioned by Ian:
KB925876

Anonymous said...

Please clarify:
If two Win XP machines are both running RDP 6.0, will span multiple monitors work between them (no Vista machines involved)?
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Vista is not required (on either client or server). As mentioned, the XP RDP client will need to be upgraded (per the KB article), but otherwise, you're good to go.

Peter said...

How do you use the RDP / Span mode when making a connection via SBS 2003 RWW?

Setup as follows: Host PC running three monitors. Remote PC is a laptop using dual external monitors via Matrox DualHead2Go device. This device forces the dual dispplays to a span mode. Running application "Splitview" from Splitview.com on Host PC to assist with treating remote dual displays as individual monitors. However it needs to use RDP with the /Span switch.

Sean Daniel said...

SBS 2003 doesn't support this, in SBS 2008, you can create the RDP file and use TSGateway to connect with the /span switch

Hoyt Velasquez said...

These are indeed useful tips in remote desktop connection. Thank you for sharing an informative post.