Archive for August, 2008

DualView mouse problem in full-screen games

2008-08-22, 19:49
Category: Hardware and Software
Summaries:
Starsze gry pokroju GTA3 mogą mieć problemy z obsługą dwóch monitorów w trybie DualView (oddzielne ekrany) - co objawia się np. minimalizowaniem okna aplikacji pełnoekranowej po kliknięciu myszką. Najlepszym rozwiązaniem wydaje się wyłączenie drugiego monitora na czas gry w tego typu produkcje.

Problem:

I’ve just bought the GTA collection on Steam. Now testing Grand Theft Auto 3. The problem is that clicking any of the mouse buttons randomly sends me to the desktop. It seems as if I chose to minimize the window with Alt+Tab (I can undo the minimization this way, but it’s no fun in the middle of the action).

Solution:

The problem gets quite obvious when I turn the second display on. It is the poor dual monitor handling by the not-so-hot-anymore games that causes all the fuss. DualView setup (two independent displays) works OK till I switch to full-screen gaming. In GTA3 moving the mouse also moves the mouse pointer in the “underlying desktop”. And there’s no border between my two desktops, so clicking the mouse when the pointer gets out of the game area switches the focus to desktop. Easy way to solve this is either not to play that kind of games (not what you would want really, hmm?) or just switch off the unused display for gaming (I mean disable it in Windows).

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Brak obsługi DualView

2008-08-11, 00:53
Category: Hardware
Summaries:
At times when plugging in new displays, DualView functionality can be chosen only after a complete system reboot.

Problem:

Sprawa, która skojarzyła mi się na szybko z ostatnim wpisem o Excelu i dwóch monitorach. Po bezpośrednim podłączeniu drugiego monitora jedyny możliwy tryb wyświetlania do uzyskania w sterownikach NVIDIA to zwykły kloning.

Rozwiązanie:

Uzyskanie oddzielnej obsługi każdego monitora (tak zwany DualView) możliwe jest dopiero po restarcie systemu (mimo wcześniejszego prawidłowego wykrycia monitorów). Detal, ale nie zawsze oczywisty.

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Excel Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V shortcuts not working

2008-08-10, 22:02
Category: Software
Summaries:
NVIDIA MultiView and Microsoft Excel 2007 have some compatibility issues. When the Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V shortcuts don't work, try disabling MultiView support for Excel (nView Desktop Manager).
Sterowniki NVIDIA MultiView i Microsoft Excel 2007 nie współpracują zbyt dobrze, co objawia się między innymi problemami ze skrótami klawiaturowymi (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V). Jedynym wyjściem okazuje się wyłączenie funkcjonalności MultiView dla aplikacji MS Excel (do uzyskania w panelu nView Desktop Manager).
NVIDIA MultiView et Microsoft Excel 2007 ont quelques problèmes de compatibilité. Quand les raccourcis claviers (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) ne marchent pas, il faut désactiver le support de MultiView pour Excel (nView Desktop Manager).NVIDIA MultiView und Microsoft Excel 2007 haben manche Probleme mit der Kompatibilität. Wenn die Tastaturkürzel (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) nicht arbeiten wollen, schalten Sie die MultiView Unterstützung für Excel ab (nView Desktop Manager).
NVIDIA MultiView y Microsoft Excel 2007 tienen algunas problemas importantes con la compatibilidad. Cuando los atajos de teclado (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) no trabajan, intente desactivar el soporte de MultiView para Excel (nView Desktop Manager).

Problem:

First of all, I have to admit, this one was a bit tough. I’ve spent a couple of painful hours trying to solve it, but let’s get to the matter. My Excel installation behaved strangely lately (a lot of crashes – even when applying bold formatting to cell (sic!)). I’ve just bought a new LCD (yeah, first-in-a-lifetime DualView experience – great!), so it was a good time for a system reinstallation. However, though no more crashes occurred, a new problem arose – I couldn’t use the good old Ctrl+… shortcuts for copying/pasting and other things.

Follow-up:

As no “Ctrl” shortcuts worked as they should (instead I got alternating cell selection and other weird functions) it was a no-go. A really frustrating experience having to work like that. So it had to get priority handling.

After some hours of clicking here and there (no Google answers available at the time) I found out (more or less accidentally) that there’s one way to avoid this problem – when starting MS Office by “Start Menu->Run->Excel” everything worked as it should. Weird, but 100% reproducible. Starting directly – works OK. Shortcuts, menu items, opening spreadsheets in Explorer or even starting from command line – every time the same bug.

Second “accident” – when starting it “the wrong way” (f.e. opening Excel files) it occurred to me that using Ctrl+C combination when Excel is loading (spreadsheet visible) can fix this behaviour too. But you have to do it at the very beginning – when the application has not yet been fully loaded (initializing add-ons and stuff).

Solution:

I thought it may be the case of some malformed add-on (even though it was a distil clean install), so I disabled all of them – to no avail. Then I thought about things which have changed since that reinstallation I made some days ago. The only one new was the dual display configuration – you bet it couldn’t have any influence on it. Gotcha – see how insanely absurd can the computers be at times.

In fact NVIDIA MultiView drivers and Microsoft Office 2007 do not tend to coexist peacefully. A lot of problems can be seen (seems that Office 2007 has some non-standard windows procedures – this way it can get that unique look’n'feel which does not correspond to any built-in Windows XP style), but here it was the imprecise problem of some MultiView software keyboard conflicts. Not sure if it’s a plain keyboard-hook bug (disabling all MultiView shortcuts does not resolve the issue), but it’s certainly somewhere deep inside as turning MultiView features completely off works like a charm.

Hey, you could’ve asked, what’s the point of disabling all additional DualView functionality in a multi-display configuration? A big price to pay for Excel compatibility. Fortunately, you can disable individual applications in nView Desktop Manager (check nView properties or the Control Panel). Just go to the Applications tab and add “disable-all” rules for “excel”. It seems there’s no way not to lose Excel multi-display functionality and maintain sane keyboard shortcuts. But I’d rather stay with my Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V working even at the price of manual resizing, repositioning and moving Excel windows between the displays.

Huh, hope you don’t have to go through it and by the time you’re reading this Microsoft and NVIDIA geeks will have it up and running correctly.

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