PowerPoint in WVPC

Running Office 2007 <gag> in Windows 7 x64, so loaded Office 2003 in a
WVPC VM as I still need to support and develop for that platform as
well.

All is good except... When I flick PPT into presentation mode, it
centers the show smackdab in the middle of the virtual display -- that
is, spread across both displays and split down the middle.

Anyone know of anyway to force it to use one or the other, as it does
when it's installed native?

Thanks... Karl

 

Seeing no response in the VirtualPC group, I'm now thinking I should've
also cross-posted over into a PowerPoint group as well.

For the PowerPoint folks: WVPC is "Windows Virtual PC" which allows
virtual XP machines to be setup in Windows 7. In this case, PPT2003 is
being run "seemlessly", making it appear that it's running as an
installed app in the Win7 install, rather than within the XP VM.

Any thoughts or ideas or questions?

Thanks... Karl

 

Heh, well, sometimes it seems to work better than others?

No. It just seems to use the entire virtual screen coordinates, not
differentiating between individual monitors.

As I google about more and more, it's starting to seem like a "known
limitation/feature." For example:

"Virtual application windows being centered across two monitors is a
known limitation. The application opens in span mode and treats the 2
monitors as 1 big screen, hence the centering."
~
http://blogs.technet.com/windows_vpc/archive/2009/08/04/windows-virtual-pc.aspx

(I can't tell if that's an official MSFT mouth speaking, there, or
not?)

These things are weird. They operate just as though they are installed
on the host. Other than having the whole XP theme thing going on, with
nary a sign of Aero, of course.

Thanks... Karl

 

Does it have the seamless operation?

 

Hm. Use VMWare instead? ;-)

Not quite as good as XP Mode -- it's called Unity, and it's also pretty
slow. (it uses screen scraping rather than RDP)

 

Okay, that sounds a whole like running ordinary VirtualPC VMs. They've
actually done something kind of crazy with what they now call "Windows
Virtual PC" that can be added onto non-consumer versions of Windows 7.
It makes it appear the software running in an XP VM is actually running
on Windows 7. But it fails to pass along the separate monitor
information. It's very cool, and at times very frustrating. Funny how
that goes, huh?

 

Okay, that's good to know. So we're left just waiting for MSFT to
accurately pass the monitor metrics through to the guest VM, then. :-(

 

Okay, that's good to know. So we're left just waiting for MSFT to

I wouldn't know, I never use extended desktop like that, however I don't
think it's passing parameter that's the problem, it's probably the drawing
technology. In VPC2007 it was a directdraw problem, but I don't know about
WVPC.

 

I'd like to think, yeah. But given the difficulty I've had describing
it, I wonder if it's risen to anyone's attention yet.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

Once you get an "XP Mode" VM running, anything you put in the "All
Users" start menu will show up in your host Windows 7 start menu, under
the VirtualPC group, and can be fired up as you would any other
"native" application. If the VM isn't already running, that starts up
(in the background, unseen) first. The "seamless" app just runs as
would any other, except that it's XP themed rather than all Aero'd out.
<g>

 

I could find out definitely enough, I guess, by just writing up a quick
little monitor enumeration applet and running it in that mode. But I
think, from the time I've spent working with the monitor API, that it's
pretty clear what's happening. The seamless apps are simply being told
there's one monitor, and its dimensions are given as that of the entire
virtual monitor which is the accumulamulated area of all physical
monitors combined.

IOW, say you have two monitors, side by side. Both running at
1280x1024, with the 0,0 point at the upper-left of monitor 1, which is
on the left. The coordinate space for the twp physical displays would
be something like:

0,0 1279,0 1280,0 2559,0

*1* *2*

0,1023 1279,1023 1280,1023 2559,1023

(Hope you have a fixed-width font! <g>)

But monitor "0" is the virtual display, that covers the whole thing.
It's coordinates would be:

0,0 2559,0

*0*

0,1023 2559,1023

That's the one being given to the seamless apps, when they inquire
about monitor dimensions. This also explains why their popup dialogs
(msgbox's, etc) so often appear split between the two monitors.
They're simply centering themselves on what they see as "the" monitor.

 

In that case, for slide shows, all you need to do is resize the slide show
to half of its width. I quickly wrapped this up in an add-in - WVPC
Assistant - http://officeone.mvps.org/wvpcassist/WVPCAssistant10.exe.
Install it within your WVPC instance. Now Whenever you start PowerPoint
slide show within your WVPC instance, the slide show will be resized to half
so that it shows up on the first monitor. Current limitations of the add-in:
(1) It works only with 2 monitors, (2) Both the monitors need to be of the
same resolution, (3) It doesn't care if you run it within WVPC or on regular
Windows - it just resizes the slide show in first half.

- Chirag

PowerShow - View multiple PowerPoint slide shows simultaneously
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

 

You feel the minutes don't you? <g>.
/se

 

I very much understand what you mean, but I think WVPC would have to be
multiple monitor aware (and assignable to specific monitors) for you to get
what you want, and I'm afraid that's not the case. You can cheat by not
using full screen mode and just sizing the window correctly I would think...

I wonder if RAIL has this problem independent of WVPC...

 

Just saw a workaround in the WVPC forum, make your main monitor the
rightmost monitor in the resolution settings and your seamless app will no
longer span both monitors.

 

Yeah, the more I thought about it last night, that realization dawned
on me. That would definitely seem to be the better enhancement
request, but I'm guessing the odds of that are pretty darned low, huh?

That works well, except with apps that decide for themselves. Like
PowerPoint in slideshow mode. I'm going to try Chirag's add-in, and
see how that goes, though.

Whazzat?

 

OMG! That works! Where'd you find it?

 

Will give that a shot!

 

It's the /only/ way to run 16-bit apps in x64, for one thing. Also, it
seems FrontPage is totally hosed on w7. And, one of the cooler uses
I've put it to is this very one - having side by side installs of
different Office versions.

 

Heh, on the first instance, yeah. But if you're like me, and will tend
to have 3 or 4 FrontPage instances running at any given time, as well
as a couple/few Words, Excels or PowerPoints, they start to pop just as
quickly as any other. <g>

 

Yeah, the more I thought about it last night, that realization dawned on

You never know, if you request it and give a darn good reason most people
need it, they're pretty open to suggestions.

RAIL is an RDP way of sharing application windows, it's not just a WVPC
thing.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc239612(PROT.10).aspx