MultiMon Taskbar Free Adds a Taskbar to a Second Monitor

MultiMon Taskbar Free is an application that places a simple, basic taskbar on your secondary monitor, or even on two secondary monitors if you have a triple-monitor setup.

MultiMon Taskbar Free feels old, but if your taskbar needs are very basic, it may suffice.The application is as bare-bones as they get. The MultiMon taskbar is horizontal and fixed to the bottom of the screen. It is "Windows default" gray, a color that is increasingly rare in today's Aero-drenched translucent interfaces. If you have fond memories of the taskbar used in Windows NT 4, that's pretty much what you'll see here.

I have a dual-monitor setup, with the Windows 7 taskbar positioned vertically on the right side of the left monitor. That sounds complicated, but it means the taskbar is roughly in the middle. The left monitor also happens to be the secondary one, so when I launched MultiMon Taskbar Free, it just placed a second taskbar on the same monitor. There is no way to move MultiMon Taskbar Free itself, so I had to move my Windows taskbar to the other monitor.

MultiMon Taskbar Free feels like a blast from the past, especially when compared with more modern alternatives such as DisplayFusion Pro. Admittedly, DisplayFusion Pro is a commercial product ($25), but it places a taskbar on your secondary monitor that looks and feels just like the native Windows 7 taskbar, right down to the glowing Start orb.

I use Stickies for putting sticky notes and reminders on my monitor. Usually these don't appear on the Windows taskbar, but for some reason MultiMon Taskbar Free decided each sticky note was a window, and filled the taskbar with tiles that all said "ASticky." The only way to "fix" this was to exit Stickies (not much of a fix, really).

Speaking of Stickies, its developer, Zhorn Software, also offers a free application for adding a taskbar to your secondary monitor. It is called ZBar and is similar to MultiMon Taskbar Free, but works much better. Like MultiMon Taskbar Free, its taskbar is horizontal only, but it contains presets for emulating the native Windows 7 taskbar and other classic taskbars. It has been updated much more recently than MultiMon Taskbar Free, and has a modest resource footprint.

Sometimes free software is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it feels like you get what you pay for. I would recommend MultiMon Taskbar Free only for users who must go with a free solution--and have tried ZBar but didn't like it for some reason.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Erez Zukerman

The real multi-monitor support in Windows has task-bar only in the primary monitor that shows applications from all monitors. The extended monitors are plain without any taskbar. There is no other way to add another taskbar to the extended monitor. All windows are displayed on the primary monitors taskbar regardless on which monitor they are opened. We created MultiMon taskbar to solve this issue in our office. It creates a second (and third) taskbar which will be put on extended monitors. Each taskbar display items from that monitor only.

The PRO version has additional features such as resizing windows to multiple monitors, moving to monitors, suspending the extended taskbars when the computer is connected via Remote Desktop and themed captions.

Note: The download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the most recent version of the software. The vendor states that the free version was developed for XP and "sort of" works on Vista and 7.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

MultiMon Taskbar Pro: A Second Taskbar for Dual-Monitor Setups

MultiMonitor Taskbar Pro offers a lean and simple taskbar, as well as a way to quickly shuttle windows between monitors.MultiMon Taskbar Pro lets you place a simple horizontal taskbar on your secondary monitor. It comes with five color schemes, ranging from "Classic Gray Style" all the way to Windows 7. No matter what color scheme you choose, the application always feels like the Windows XP taskbar: Each application gets a wide button with a tiny icon and a long text label.

Actually, some applications get more than one button: This happened with to me with Zhorn Software's Stickies, which I use to place sticky notes on my monitor. These notes never appear on the Windows taskbar, but MultiMon Taskbar Pro decided to give each one its own taskbar tile, quickly filling up the secondary taskbar.

In terms of memory, MultiMon Taskbar Pro is very thrifty, taking up just over 2MB of RAM. It features a few extras beyond the taskbar: When you hover over the taskbar of an active window, an arrow button appears, pointing at the other monitor. Click the button, and the window hops over to the next monitor. Unlike the rest of MultiMon, this button is well integrated with the Windows 7 Aero interface, and feels right at home.

Another extra feature is the clipboard menu integrated into the taskbar. This menu shows a log of text copied into the clipboard--not just the most recent copy operation. Clicking a line from the log puts it back into the clipboard, in plain-text form (all formatting is lost). This feature introduces privacy concerns, because it exposes your clipboard history to anyone who has access to your desktop. Fortunately, it can be disabled.

The best thing about MultiMon Taskbar Pro is its generous site licensing policy: For a one-time $850 fee, any organization can install the application on all of its computers, worldwide, with no limitations whatsoever.

For a single user, MultiMon Taskbar Pro retails for $28. This is not as attractive: For $25, you could get DisplayFusion Pro, which does much more than MultiMon Taskbar Pro. Its taskbar looks like the real Windows 7 taskbar, for one, and it manages dual-screen wallpapers, too.

If you are looking for a multi-monitor taskbar for your organization, MultiMon Taskbar Pro may be a good fit. Individual users might want to shop around.

--Erez Zukerman

Because of popular demand and millions of downloads over 5 years we released a PRO version that has more functionality and a better visual integration. The free version is still available.

The real multi-monitor support in Windows has task-bar only in the primary monitor that shows applications from all monitors. The extended monitors are plain without any taskbar. There is no other way to add another taskbar to the extended monitor. All windows are displayed on the primary monitors taskbar regardless on which monitor they are opened. We created MultiMon taskbar to solve this issue in our office. It creates a second (and third) taskbar which will be put on extended monitors. Each taskbar display items from that monitor only.

The PRO version has additional features such as resizing windows to multiple monitors, moving to monitors, suspending the extended taskbars when the computer is connected via Remote Desktop and themed captions.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here