My review - Program is excellent and worth the purchase.

[urbanriot]

I can't say that I paid $25 for it when I bought it a few years back as it does seem rather high but I can say that this program is an excellent application that gives you what the competitive offerings cannot - an exact replica of the Windows start menu / toolbar / system tray / clock on your other monitor(s).

The start button is Microsoft's what with the same pinned items, the system tray is the same, the clock is the same, the taskbar is slightly different when you right click but it allows you to pin different applications to this bar, so your primary bar will have its pinned items while the displayfusion taskbar will have its own pinned items.

A few years back, I tried Multimonitor (Oscar's) free toolbar, Ultramon and a host of others, none of them could compare to what DisplayFusion could do at the time... fast forward a few years and the authors have added piles of little abilities that I used other third party utilities for, like 'pin to always on top', 'span monitors', 'switch to other monitor', hotkey support for additional functions you can't do with windows.

I was hestitent to try this a few years back and they would have had my money sooner if they didn't force you to register to demo it. That definitely held me back as I want to demo products, not sign up for spam; however I was glad I did as this app has been indispensible.

Since there's a pile of negative comments in the list of discussions I may come across as a shill but I have nothing to do with this company - I'm just an extremely satisfied long term registered user.

If anyone has any functionality questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability (which is decent as I'm fairly tech savvy).

[shivars]

I agree :)

Worth saying that DisplayFusion is also quite a bit cheaper than UltraMon

[Blitzsturm]

One issue I've run into with a triple monitor setup is the wallpaper will start in the primary monitor and wrap from there. More specifically, my middle of 3 monitors is set as primary; so I end up with the left wallpaper in the middle, the middle on the right and the right on the left (123 > 231). I'm not sure why windows does this but it's kind of annoying.

The only solutions are to edit the 5760x1080 to move the parts of the wallpaper to display correctly, set the left-most monitor as primary, or use Nvidia's monitor spanning. I don't like leaving spanning on unless I'm playing a game with all screens as it'll screw up some window graphics like chrome when it does a quasi-maximize.

So, my question would be, can this thing fix what Windows does a crappy job of naturally for an unusual setup, or would it simply do what windows already does?

On top of that, what are the real benefits you can't get naturally in windows? Is it really just easy wallpaper control and extra taskbars?

Edit... Ah I just answered my own question... I found the trial download off their main site and gave it a shot and it totally fixes the stupid built into windows. I'll have to toy around with it and see what else it does or if it breaks Nvidia settings before I'm willing to drop my hard earned money on it but it looks pretty promising.

[urbanriot]

Of all the things this program can do, two of the functions I don't use are different wallpapers on monitors and different screensavers on monitors, as I use a black background and blank the screen with power savings. My needs with displayfusion are more utilitarian...

... err except changing the Windows Logon screen, that feature I used. I realize installing a bunch of free applets can do a lot of the little things this program can do, but they're like little bonuses when what I really want is the primary focus of this program - the Windows taskbar.

[shivars]

İlk olarak Blitzsturm tarafından gönderildi:

if it breaks Nvidia settings

I haven't observed any breakage since buying (this is also with SLI+3DVision). Actually, one crash to desktop in Bioshock Infinite...but tbf that's not the first time with Bioshock (have had crashes pre-DF-install).

[セキレイ]

I agree with OP, I'v been using this program for over a year and it's really good. It has a lot of great features and makes using multiple monitors a lot better.

[Blitzsturm]

İlk olarak shivars tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Blitzsturm tarafından gönderildi:

if it breaks Nvidia settings

I haven't observed any breakage since buying (this is also with SLI+3DVision). Actually, one crash to desktop in Bioshock Infinite...but tbf that's not the first time with Bioshock (have had crashes pre-DF-install).

I've tried Bioshock Infinite in 3D mode but it renders too many things wrong making it look like hell. Though, when you turn on monitor spanning it handles 3 monitors like a boss. Though I don't like just leaving spanning on when I'm not gaming since it screws up on some things. I'd love to have an ability to quickly toggle spanning mode, but that's more of an Nvidia thing.


In any case, the main thing this software does for me I like is quickly fixing wallpapers that windows screws up when you don't have your left-most monitor as your primary.

I really don't use screen savers since they are pointless outside of CRT monitors and would rather my monitors simply turn off to save a little power.

Logon screen background changing is cool, but I use an easy to find free piece of software for that.

The additional task-bars are kind of cool and I like how each screen has it's individual items listed on it's own task-bar.

I like the sticky window snap, which allows quick and tidy adhoc window scooting.

But... that's really about it. I think I'd pay $10ish in a heartbeat for what I use but the $30 price seems a little steep and even the sale price is a little on the high side... I'll have to use the trial for a while before it expires and see how I feel about it once I get used to it. Hopefully it'll remain on sale a while in case I decide I like it...

For those whom have this and love it, what are your favorite parts you'd not want to go without?

[urbanriot]

İlk olarak Blitzsturm tarafından gönderildi:

For those whom have this and love it, what are your favorite parts you'd not want to go without?

For me it's the primary function of the software - the exact same start menu, system tray, clock / calendar as the main Microsoft one. Other applications they're close or 'just as good', but this is the exact same thing, jump menus and all.

I don't know if competitive applications have caught up since I registered, but at the time there was no other multimonitor taskbar that gave you a perfect copy. I use those jump menus like you wouldn't believe.

[BloodShed]

The features I use the most are:

Wallpaper management - Much better than the one in Windows 7.

Logon screen

Desktio Icon profiles - For when Windows decides to move all my shortcuts into one big pile, I can load a profile to move them back to the way I want them.

Keyboard shorcuts - Make a window transparent, move / resize it, lock my mouse to the boundaries of a monitor or windows (good for games (like GTA4) that doesn't capture the mouse correctly, causing the mouse to "leave" the game when moving towards my other monitor).

[Capt.Sweglord]

Does this program have any solution for using fullscreen program on main monitor, while using the other for, lets say surfing? (Without alt-tabbing)

At the moment i have to start a program in windowed mode, the use this AutoHotKey script:
#a::
WinSet, Style, -0xC40000, a
WinMove, a, , 0, 0, 1920, 1080
return

This does not work very well with shooters etc. since the mouse will move off screen.

[urbanriot]

Perhaps the developers of the software could provide a more accurate response but as far as I'm aware, the application doesn't change Windows behaviour, it simply adds whats missing from your other monitors (and some abilities that are single monitor focused).

Or in other words, if you have some games where the mouse goes off screen and clicks, which minimizes your game, I'd expect that to still stay the same since thats the functionality of Windows.

I probed through the options and I don't see any features that would limit your extents on the fly.

[shivars]

İlk olarak Capt.Awesome tarafından gönderildi:

This does not work very well with shooters etc. since the mouse will move off screen.

Yes, there is an option to constrain the mouse movement within a window/app, sounds like it would help for your situation.

Edit: the developers have mentioned it in replies to other posts - also trawling the tool's website and/or using the free trial would let you check it out.

I'll also try to help where i can, but i've not been using it long so will only be familiar with the bits useful to me.

[DaVinMan]

I have to agree. I'll be forking over my $22.49 for it. For what it's worth folks, it does a LOT of things that Stardock's tools do as well as part of the Object Desktop, and they charge a yearly $50 or so for that. Even if you buy those tools individually, you still won't have all the features that are in this thing, and you'll spend a lot more to boot. Granted, Stardock's tools are still excellent and do things this can't; you'll get me to stop using Fences for example when you can pry it from my cold dead fingers, but it's still an excellent value.