Two Thunderbolt Displays not working under Windows 7

Combining Tom's observation on the pure Tbolt solution, It also works perfectly w/o any tweaks if you plug a tbolt monitor into the 1st MBP Retina tbolt port,with all the non-monitor tbolt peripherals in that chain and then plug the mini display port into the 2nd MBP Retina tbolt port. I'm on the road so I can't test it, but if Tom's right, you theoretically could have many many tbolt monitors daisy chained so long as you had a tbolt peripheral between each tbolt monitor.

Wierd that it works out of the box with a non-monitor tbolt peripheral between the tbolt monitors....this is really overkill but how many tbolt monitors would theoretically work? I've got a 4 monitor stand.....with two apple 27 monitors (one mdp and one tbolt) and two open 27in slots to add more tbolt monitors....sigh. Three tbolt monitors and one mdp monitor. sheesh. Does the MBP retina have the video muscle to drive more than two 27s?

P.S. Nothing is quite so awe inspiring as multiple apple 27's all firing together........ truly one of life's great visuals...just a couple of thin white cords. The first time windows pops up with the twins makes you realize you purchased the right laptop.

Hi Noman84, i have the same problem. Can you help me???

How can I work with Windows 7 and 2 Thunderbolt display. I have a new MacMini server and wanted to work under windows with 2 displays. Do you have an idea what kind of cable or what hardware do I need?

Hi, can any boddy help me ?

Hi Tom,

I just read your comment on daisychaining thunderbolt displays. If I understood you correctly, does thes mean that you found out that it id possible to use more than one thunderbolt display in a Bootcamp windows 7 installation ? According to the bootcamp specs provided by apple, this is not possible :

19. How many Apple Thunderbolt Displays can I use with a Mac in Windows 7 or 8 with Boot Camp?

You can use only one Apple Thunderbolt Display with Windows 7 or 8 with Boot Camp.

I will be in the same camp too. Looking to replace my current notebook with a TB enabled machine. I dont care for OSX but they are the only ones to offer dual TB right now.
The setup I will be doing is.

TB1 to dual monitors.

TB2 to external GFX.

It looks like this setup is a non-starter right now?

Run a 15 MBPr w two TB displays (see the discussion chain where you have to go to the nvidia app on the bottom of Windows Desktop (or in Control Panel) and they work fine in Windows according to discussion.

As previously noted: I run 1 Apple 27 TBolt LED and 1 27 Apple non-TBolt LED, they each work perfectly plugged into the 2 TB ports on the MBPr. The TBolt drives I use are then daisy chained off the TBolt Port on the back of the TBolt Monitor.

FYI, Under WIndows and OSX, this means all three (2x27 and 1x15) monitors firing simultaneously at their full native res. Truly a glorious sight to behold.

Details:

MBPr 15, Mavericks, Bootcamped Win 8.1 (w/ Classic Shell), 1 Apple Cinema 27 TBolt, 1 Apple CInema 27 LED, Pegasus 4 Drive 16tb Raid, 2 WD Mybook Thunderbolt Duo's (8tb+8tb), Belkin Thunderbolt dock, 1 Buffalo Thunderbolt Portable Drive at end of chain. Works fine on both Windows and Mavericks.

Rick

Fastest laptop on earth driving the best **** displays made. No heat, no noise, just raw horsepower.

It sounds like Rick's suggestion works because he is using 1 Thunderbolt monitor, and one cinema display. This advice does not help those of us with 2 Thunderbolt monitors. Tom's suggestion does not work for me, as I am unable to see the extra monitor grayed out in the Nvidia control panel. Has anyone been able to get Tom's suggestion to work with 2 REAL Thunderbolt monitors? If not, does anyone have any other ideas on how to get 2 Thunderbolt monitors to work with Windows via Boot Camp? I have tried everything I can think of, and read a lot of suggestions on the internet, but to no avail...

Yep - this is totally barking up the wrong tree. Rick's got one TB and one Cinema LED, and the CLD uses a different bus.

Guys, the bottom line here is that multiple Thunderbolt Displays simply will not work on any version of Windows, and there's nothing you can do about it unless you can write device drivers and have the time and inclination to do so. See here for a pretty good layman's explanation: http://www.zdnet.com/boot-camp-windows-presents-some-limitations-with-thunderbol t-7000020699/

So: until Apple updates the drivers delivered with Bootcamp, or until Microsoft (or Intel or some other interested third party) becomes motivated to write a driver that can handle chained TB, you are hosed. TB + Cinema display is the only way to get mutiple Apple displays running under Windows. Period.

One final note: I wouldn't recommend this for Windows 7 anyway, because the Retina display on a MBP has a very different DPI than the big diplays do, and so the resolution will be crappy in Windows 7 because it will scale everything to the lowest DPI. If you do decide to get two monitors going using TB+Cinema like Rick (and I) did, then you are going to want Windows 8.1+, because Windows 8.1 introduced multi-display DPI scaling. Without that, the multi-monitor experience running Windows directly on the Apple hardware is going to suck big time.

TL;DR - run Parallels or swap one of your TB for a Cinema. That is all you can do.

This support post on Apple support seems to indicate that you can support dual TB displays on the new Mac Pro. Makes sense because the MP has dual graphics cards.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6068

Does anyone know if this actually works? I have oredered my Mac Pro and entend to use it with my dual TB's as I can do now with my MBP running OSX and Windows in a Parallel VM. I just need better peformance. If the MP can't support dual TB displays running Windows in Boot Camp, I will probably return it.

I have my finders crossed!

Can support 3 TB displays in windows http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6068

Have you actually tried it? I'd love to hear from someone who has!

Yes 3 TBs working just fine for me in Windows remember to put them on separate buses http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5918

I'm going to assume your using a Mac Pro (Late 2013) while we're all using older generations of Macs and Macbooks.

Can you confirm how many thunderbolt busses the rMBP has? 1 or 2.

I'm assuming 2 as only one Thunderbolt Display works under bootcamp.

Yes late 2013 Mac Pro will allow 3 TB displays in Windows.

Every other machine, including the late 2013 rMBP, only allows 1 TBD. If you want multiple displays in Windows and want the monitors to look the same, the 2nd display needs to be an Apple LED Cinema Display.

Great for people who've invested in the new Mac Pros, not so great for those (like myself) who've spent over $2,000AUD on two of these premium screens and have Mac's with only one Thunderbolt Bus.