How to stop Media Center from locking my screen/mouse

[JohnnyScience]

Ok I have multiple monitors & like to watch movies while I do other things at the same time.

Now I LOVE Media Center, I think its fantastic.

But it locks down the monitor & mouse that it opens up on, not allowing me to do other things on my other monitors.

Is there any way to turn this feature off so I can enjoy MC?

 

[z3r010]

There is no way to turn it off, but you can alt+tab or press the win key to get the mouse back to your other screen.

 

[JohnnyScience]

There is no way to turn it off, but you can alt+tab or press the win key to get the mouse back to your other screen.

Hmm. It seems that if I click on the MC sometimes it will unlock the mouse?

But every time I click off MC & onto another screen or back onto the MC, all of my screens flicker/reset?

That sucks theres no way to turn that off?

 

[paintbalforjesu]

I found a tool that will use a work around to fix this problem here: Multiple Monitor support. - The Green Button

I think this program actually just resizes the window so that it is just bigger than your display so you can't see the border and it looks full screen, but doesn't act full screen and capture your mouse. It does its job pretty well for my purposes.

 

[JohnnyScience]

I found a tool that will use a work around to fix this problem here: Multiple Monitor support. - The Green Button

I think this program actually just resizes the window so that it is just bigger than your display so you can't see the border and it looks full screen, but doesn't act full screen and capture your mouse. It does its job pretty well for my purposes.

Is that something that I'll have to do every time? Or once I install it it just runs in the background?

How exactly does this work? Because I like to drag my windows from screens to screens a lot so I dont want anything being locked on one screen...

 

[paintbalforjesu]

it puts an icon in the taskbar and when you want it full screen you double click on that icon to resize it. You can also double click on it to return it to its original size. If you right click on it you can "send to" any screen on your computer. It's not a big download, you can download it and play with it and delete it if you don't like it. It doesn't even install anything, it's just an exe.

 

[bluc]

Ok I have multiple monitors & like to watch movies while I do other things at the same time.

Now I LOVE Media Center, I think its fantastic.

But it locks down the monitor & mouse that it opens up on, not allowing me to do other things on my other monitors.

Is there any way to turn this feature off so I can enjoy MC?

Had same problem found solution here The Maxifier

 

[JohnnyScience]

Ok I have multiple monitors & like to watch movies while I do other things at the same time.

Now I LOVE Media Center, I think its fantastic.

But it locks down the monitor & mouse that it opens up on, not allowing me to do other things on my other monitors.

Is there any way to turn this feature off so I can enjoy MC?

Had same problem found solution here The Maxifier

Hmm this sounds interesting. Technically I have 4 monitors hooked up to my computer, three 19" & a 46" Samsung

Any idea if that program will still work? It just mentions 2 monitors...

 

[wulfhound]

A warning on Multimon

I downloaded this today and when I went to install, Comodo gave me this error:

Worm.Win32.AutoIt.~NS@87254559

I realize this is an old thread but Avast did not pick up anything. I guess use your own judgement. I know that Comodo picks up a *lot* of stuff that Avast misses, which is why I use both now.

 

[DemonSeed]

Hmm this sounds interesting. Technically I have 4 monitors hooked up to my computer, three 19" & a 46" Samsung

Any idea if that program will still work? It just mentions 2 monitors...

Yes the Maxifier works very well with 4 screens. I use it on my 4 screen setup and wouldn't know what to do without it.

It's configurable so you can tell it what screen you would like MC to run in and it will always push MC to that screen and unlock the mouse.

 

[fathack]

Work very well in windows 7 ultimate x32

Big thanks

 

[renton98058]

I tried Maximizer, the issue I had is that it then treats no mouse activity, aka just watching the movie, as dead time and starts the screen saver process. Half-a-Fix but better then the default but still it would be nice for the developers to treat it like a regular program and recognize a movie or music playing as activity. Give a Settings Option would be nice.

 

[carwiz]

I think it's a bug in Windows. I run the same setup--Display and TV with WMC on the TV. If you move a window to the TV then click on full screen, it locks the mouse pointer to the TV. You can't get back to the Display unless you take it out of full screen. Yet, you can move the mouse pointer from a full screen on the Display over to the TV.

So, I just resize the window for WMC on the TV to fill as much of the screen as possible. This lets me move the cursor back and forth. If enough people complain to Microsoft, maybe they'll fix it.

 

[vvvwwwvvv]

I am on W7 Ultimate x64. I also have a dual monitor setup. The best solution is to drag WMC to the extended monitor, maximize the screen then press the Windows key, your WMC will be in full screen and you'll have control over the mouse on both screens.

ml