Disabling Spaces & Expose on 2nd Monitor

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Disabling Spaces & Expose on 2nd Monitor

Does anyone know if there is a way to disable spaces and expose on a 2nd monitor? I want the 2nd screen to run a keynote presentation and not be affected by my activities on the first screen.

Thanks,
Pete

Macbook & iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), I just bought an iMac!

Posted on Jul 29, 2008 4:29 PM

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Answer 1

Pete Coco Author

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Aug 1, 2008 3:31 PM in response to Pete Coco

Having played around with the two monitor configuration for a few days now, I realized that what I really need is a way to make them run independent of each other, essentially running the second monitor as a separate tv monitor for movies and slide shows. So far I haven't found a way to do this.

Also, whenever I play a Keynote presentation, it takes over both screens in one way or another and Apple didn't seem to have any idea of a way to change this. Is there a different way I could connect them that might make them more independent of each other?

PC

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Answer 2

Aug 1, 2008 5:12 PM in response to Pete Coco

Not really. They are connected to the same Mac, so they act as part of the same desktop.

If you want the other monitor to act independently of the other monitor, you'll need to connect it to another Mac. You can, however, control the other Mac by remote control by using VNC. The other Mac's display will appear in a window on the controlling Mac. Otherwise, you can use the controlling Mac for other purposes without affecting the Mac being controlled.

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Answer 3

Pete Coco Author

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Aug 5, 2008 9:56 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Yeah, that's what I figured as I played around with the two monitors. Is there a way to set up two desktops with one Mac, kind of like a parallel type thing except minus the windows? Maybe that could work..... just a shot in the dark.

Pete

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Answer 4

Aug 5, 2008 10:46 AM in response to Pete Coco

You can set up another user account in System Preferences Accounts pane. Then by using Fast User Switching, both users can be logged in at the same time, and processes will continue to run on both accounts concurrently. Unfortunately, there is no way to assign one display to each account.

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Answer 5

Pete Coco Author

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Aug 6, 2008 1:07 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Thanks. I guess I'm just grasping at straws....!

Pete

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Answer 6

Aug 6, 2008 1:26 PM in response to Pete Coco

If Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion allowed running Mac OS X as a virtual machine, you could do what you want. Unfortunately, you cannot (at least not currently).

However, if you can do what you want on the "presentation" display using Linux (or Windows), then you can display the virtual machine full screen on the second display, while maintaining independent control of the Mac on the first display. I use VMWare Fusion (although not for this purpose).

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Answer 7

Pete Coco Author

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Aug 6, 2008 6:19 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Right, that was what I was thinking. I really don't want to run windows on my iMac though, it just seems wrong to me! Also, wouldn't that make my iMac vulnerable to viruses? And then it also doesn't solve my problem of Spaces and Expose moving all the open windows around on both screens......

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