How to Use Multiple Monitors on Virtual Machine

There are times you need to use more than one monitor to do your work. It provides more space and room for doing delicate work. Plus, you know how much a pleasure a full-screen virtual machine on another display can provide. It’s like the authority and power you get by using the same mouse and keyboard.

How to use Multiple monitors with VMware virtual monitor

Many of you might know that there is this problem with VMware that it won’t allow any of its users to use or utilize more than a single monitor for any guest operating system. In case you want to connect multiple monitors with a virtual machine, you will need to bypass this situation.

The good news is that there is a way to undo this default setting so that you can use multiple monitors without any problem caused by VMware and do your delicate work. Our guide will help you to use multiple monitors on a single go irrespective of any Operating System you use in your virtual machine. You can connect one, two, three, or even more if you apply these steps.  Here are two steps that you need to follow so that you can multiple monitors with VMware virtual monitor.

Step 1: Turn Off Virtual Machine

Before doing anything, you need to turn off the virtual machine; otherwise, it won’t be possible to connect multiple monitors on a virtual machine. After turning it off, you need to open the VMware app. When you open the app, you don’t have to do anything, you just have to go to Edit > Preferences. After doing that, you will find several options. Go to the Display section and in the Display section, there are two options one is Autofit window and another is Auto fit guest. Read the instructions and right-click both the options to get going.

You need to know that the options offer different results. The Autofit guest option, which can be seen under the Full-screen label, will allow your virtual machine’s display to have exactly the same resolution as the application (VMware) window. This is really important; when you use multiple monitors, the problem is that the resolution becomes really poor of the other monitors. The display of the other monitors does not exhibit the same resolution as the display of the original monitor. Now, by right ticking this option, you will have exactly the same resolution of the VMware app window on all monitors. However, by clicking on the Auto fit guest option, you will need to change the resolution of your virtual machine and install VMware Tools to do the remaining work of connecting multiple monitors on a virtual machine.

In order to install the VMware tools you need, you need to click the OK button to proceed further. When you click the OK button, you will come across the option of Edit virtual machine settings. After clicking this option, you have to click on the virtual machine name and a new option of settings will appear, select Settings, and go to the Display section.

Automatically it will begin to Use a host setting for monitors. After that, you will come across Specify of monitor’s option, choose that option. At this stage, most of the work is done. You just have to tell how many monitors you have.

If you want to connect 3 monitors, you will have to tell that you want to connect 3 monitors. After doing that, it is time for you to select the monitor’s resolution. Now, press Ok and save the changes. Keep in mind that the resolution you select will be of a single monitor.

Step 2 Turn on your virtual machine.

Everything in the first step is done when the virtual machine is sleeping. Now, it is time to turn on your virtual machine. Go to the view bar and select Cycle Multiple Monitors. In this way, you will be able to get your virtual machine on every monitor that you want to connect. After all that, you need to open your Operating system settings. For example, if you have Windows 10 as your operating system then go to its settings panel and go to the system option. In the system option, you will get a display option, select that to manage your monitor’s Operating System. Now everything is done and you are good to go.

However, you will see that there are times you get an error message saying that you cannot use multiple monitors. It happens because you don’t have VMware tools installed. Install that to make this message go away.

 

How to Install VMware Tools

If you have turned your virtual machine off, it is time to turn it on. After turning it on, you need to use the menu bar. Now, you will find the VM option in front of you, select that and then click Install VMware Tools. Press the Ok button that shows up in front of your screen on the Install VMware Tools information window.

The process of installing the VMware Tools begins here. Keep in mind that your autorun should be already enabled for the CD-ROM drive so that you can proceed to the next steps. Sometimes you might not see the installation wizard, there is nothing to worry about.

Just press Win+R keys and you will have to write D:setup.exe or D:setup64.exe for a 64-bit system. In this command, the D points to the virtual CD-ROM drive. After that, you will privilege to choose anything between Typical, Complete, or Custom options during the installation process.

We advise you to select the complete option so that you can run the virtual machine on multiple VMware products. Now, the installation will be completed and you are good to go and connect the multiple monitors on a virtual machine

How would you Use Multiple Monitors with a Parallels Virtual Machine?

In case you have a Mac and you want to connect multiple monitors using Parallels then you have to go through a simple procedure and everything will be done.

Initially, you need to turn off the Windows virtual machine to get things started. Now, open up Parallels Control Center. After that click the gear icon which will let you see the settings options for your virtual machine. Now, go for the Options tab that you will see on the screen, then select the Full-Screen section.

Now, you will see that there is a  “Use all displays in full screen” option. You have to check that box by using your mouse. It will automatically check the second option, “Activating virtual machine shows all its spaces,”. Save these settings and proceed further.

After doing all this stuff, turn on your Windows to click the green Full-Screen button. In the next step, you will see the virtual machine has been launched on your multiple desktops. In case you want to change the operating system, you can change that in Mission Control settings. Now if you have switched to one window on one display, you will see that there is also a switch in other displays too. In order to control that you can use Mission Control settings.

Final thoughts

People often find it difficult to connect multiple monitors to the virtual machine but if you follow our guide, you can easily use multiple monitors on the virtual machine