MaxiVista Update

I tried the demo of MaxiVista and liked it, and then it expired. I uninstalled it. I forgot about it.

Recently, however, I have wanted to control the information coming at me a little better, and I remembered MaxiVista. So I bought the Pro version. (This version does everything except mirror your desktop on another computer--I don't foresee the need to do that.) Now I have my e-mail client open on the secondary PC and my main work open on the main screen. I can move windows around from screen to screen if I want to change where they are located.

One thing that this version does that the demo version did not do is control the second PC from the first one. So instead of making your desktop span multiple screens, this allows you to use your primary PC's keyboard and mouse on your primary PC and then drag the mouse to the other monitor and start accessing that PC's files and programs--all while still using your primary PC's keyboard and mouse. Pretty neat, though I'll still probably not use that feature all that much. A side effect of this feature is that you can highlight text on one PC, copy it, and then paste it onto the other PC.

MaxiVista also allows up to 4 PCs to be used--the primary plus 3 others. Right now I only have two laptops in use (which I think is enough for now at least).

Configuration: By default, it is configured for "Maximum Speed". This had a noticeable effect on what the desktop looked like on the second PC, so I changed the setting to "High Picture Quality" and that seemed to take care of it (the maximum setting is "Maximum Picture Quality", but "High Picture Quality" seems to give me the best look/speed tradeoff).

I just wanted to follow up on this since I said that I would.

[Update: After browsing through the documents at the MaxiVista web site, I came across this note in the Version History page:

For experts only: To change the MaxiVista behaviour when locking the Viewer PC, you can alter value "2" to "1" in following registry key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MaxiVista\A2\username]"lock_method"=dword:00000002 (video tutorial)

I much prefer the setting set to "1" than "2". In this mode, the monitor program on the second laptop doesn't close when the primary laptop is locked, so I don't have to reposition all the programs back onto the secondary laptop/display once more after logging back into Windows. Note that "username" in the registry key name should be the name you logged in with, not the literal "username".]