Thin Clients with multiple monitors?

[andycoates]

Heya,

 

This was more of a "what if..." in my head so I'm not sure if its even possible!

 

Is it possible to get thin clients with multiple monitor support, that can run multiple remote desktop clients so you can have one on each monitor? If so can anyone recommend any?

 

I also believe some virtual desktop software (I think it was XenDesktop?) lets you create a virtual desktop that can span multiple monitors locally? Does that depend a lot on the local hardware, or is it more application specific? I have a vague recollection that vmware didn't support multiple monitors, though can't recall if it was hardware related or not..

 

Thanks,

Andy.

[SYNACK]

Anything with a Vista/Server 2008 or newer OS supports multiple moniter spanning:

Take advantage of multiple monitors with Vista's Remote Desktop | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

So a cut down machine with just Vista/7 a couple of moniters and a 2008 back end should be able to do this. I am unaware of any purpose built thinclients with dual moniter support but there are bound to be some. The just need support for RDP client 6.1 and a couple of video cards to pull this off.

Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services Client 6.0)

[andycoates]

Ah good to know about TS 6.1 functionality, thanks

[dhicks]

Is it possible to get thin clients with multiple monitor support, that can run multiple remote desktop clients so you can have one on each monitor?

 

Does ThinStation support this? I was wondering about this the other day - as you pointed out in your other post, even thin clients these days are getting over-powerful for just displaying a remote desktop, so you could have one machine run two (or more?) remote connections, just attach two screens and keyboards / mice. I found a vauge reference to ThinStation support for mutiple monitors floating around Google somewhere, but it was very vauge. I've got ThinStation on a CD, so as soon as as find a computer with a spare graphics card I'll give it a go.

 

--

David Hicks

[SYNACK]

Just depends on whether rdesktop 1.6.0 supports it as that is what is bundled in the latest version. Whether it does or not may be in the documentation which is helpfully locked away in the install tarball but from the feature request page it does not look promising yet:

SourceForge.net: rdesktop: Detail: 1773895 - RDP 6.0 Support

 

I guess it also depends on how good/bad thinstation is at dealing with multiple moniters in the first place

[Yarzie]

The Sun Sun Rays ultrathin client will do multiple monitors you can get one that supports 2 monitors and you can link a third screen by binding the two sunrays together on the server to give you three monitors.

 

If you've got a workstation with muliple network cards and graphic cards you could open RDP sessions to separate servers on separate networks across separate screens.

 

We used to use a Terminal services to a management server that could route to other servers and have muliple TSE sessions across multiple monitors but always used workstations or laptops with two screens to do this.

 

Don't see the point in having a super spec thin client device that costs as much as a workstation you might as well get a good deal on a cheap workstation becomes more flexible but does depend where and why you're trying to do this

[apaton]

The Sun Sun Rays ultrathin client will do multiple monitors you can get one that supports 2 monitors and you can link a third screen by binding the two sunrays together on the server to give you three monitors.

 

The Sun Ray FS2 does support two monitors attached, but you can also extend beyoned the three to 16. See you tube video.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GsfwHIpw0&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Sun Ray Login[/ame]