Actual Tools has launched a new version of its Actual Multiple Monitors, a multi-monitor management utility for Windows 7 that provides emulation of Windows Taskbar on secondary displays.
The Taskbar is an integral part of the Windows user interface and has been significantly redesigned in Windows 7 with such handy features as Pin and Peek. But owners of multi-monitor Windows setups discovered rather quickly there were no proper tools to efficiently manage tasks on secondary monitors. Even the newest Windows 7 still does not provide a Taskbar for this scenario. No Taskbar means you have to drag the mouse to the primary display and back each time certain programs need to be activated via the Taskbar button. This is also the case when a new application is launched via the Start menu or a particular icon is accessed in the notification area.
When launched, the Actual Multiple Monitors 2.1 program adds a full copy of the main Taskbar onto each secondary display. Each Taskbar copy has a Start button, copy of the notification area, and shows live previews over the Taskbar buttons (with support for the Aero Peek feature). It provides the unique ability to pin buttons, which is the case with the main Windows 7 Taskbar.
"Efficient task management in a multi-monitor environment is impossible without habitual instruments," said Michael Tretyakov of Actual Tools. "Our primary goal is to provide all multi-monitor Windows users with a task management tool fully identical to the main taskbar."
In addition to the outstanding multi-monitor Taskbar, Actual Multiple Monitors has many other features to manage multi-monitor desktop in an efficient manner. An Alt-Tab Task Switcher is cloned on all monitors. There is a quick toggling of secondary displays on/off. The primary display can be assigned via the context menu of the notification area icon. A special button in each window's title bar allows instant transfer of any window onto the required monitor. Actual Multiple Monitors provides the ability to maximize any window to the entire desktop or implement horizontal/vertical maximization to its current monitor. It's possible to store various desktop configurations as named profiles and switch between them in a single click. Furthermore, the current order and layout of desktop icons can be stored and fully restored.
