Display names for multimonitor setup documented somewhere?

[Stefan Kuhr]

Hello everyone,

I have an app bar as part of the product and I want to give
administrators a way to specify at installation time or via a group
policy on which display and which screen edge this app bar should be
visible after having been started, in case the computer has a
multimonitor setup. I only have a two-monitor setup and when enumerating
monitors on XP and Vista, I get the names \\.\DISPLAY1 and \\.\DISPLAY2.
Is this naming scheme \\.\DISPLAYx with x=[1...n] documented somewhere?
If this scheme is something I can rely upon, I would simply take a
number x that has been specified during setup or in the group policy,
construct the string \\.\DISPLAYx and display the appbar on that display.

Does anybody here have experience with these display names, are they
consistently of the form \\.\DISPLAYx? On all MS OS version that support
multiple monitors?

(Yes I know that display 2 could be on top of display 1 on one computer
and could be on the right of display 1 on the next computer. In my
scenario, I assume they have all been configured the same on all
computers of my customer).

[David Lowndes]

Post by Stefan Kuhr
Does anybody here have experience with these display names, are they
consistently of the form \\.\DISPLAYx? On all MS OS version that support
multiple monitors?

I've not seen anything else, however I've also never seen the name
format documented - so I wouldn't rely on it.

Why do you think you want to rely on it?

Dave

[Stefan Kuhr]

Hi David,

Post by David Lowndes

Post by Stefan Kuhr
Does anybody here have experience with these display names, are they
consistently of the form \\.\DISPLAYx? On all MS OS version that support
multiple monitors?

I've not seen anything else, however I've also never seen the name
format documented - so I wouldn't rely on it.
Why do you think you want to rely on it?

Because it would be very easy for administrators to specify the
behaviour of my appbar. They would simply specify: "Always start the
appbar docked to the right screen edge of display 2 on multimonitor
systems" or something similar. At least this is the requirement that I
received and it is one that is simple to understand even for the casual
user (user=administrator running my setup or configuring group
policies). If displays are always named according to the \\.\DISPLAYx
notation, this would be very easy to implement.

[David Lowndes]

Post by Stefan Kuhr
Because it would be very easy for administrators to specify the
behaviour of my appbar. They would simply specify: "Always start the
appbar docked to the right screen edge of display 2 on multimonitor
systems" or something similar.

How do they know what "Display2" is though - unless they're always
working with known systems?

Post by Stefan Kuhr
At least this is the requirement that I received

Yeah, we probably all get such requirements :)

If your systems are "well known", I suspect you can probably get away
with it.

Dave

[Stefan Kuhr]

Hi David,

Post by David Lowndes

Post by Stefan Kuhr
Because it would be very easy for administrators to specify the
behaviour of my appbar. They would simply specify: "Always start the
appbar docked to the right screen edge of display 2 on multimonitor
systems" or something similar.

How do they know what "Display2" is though - unless they're always
working with known systems?

Post by Stefan Kuhr
At least this is the requirement that I received

Yeah, we probably all get such requirements :)
If your systems are "well known", I suspect you can probably get away
with it.
Dave

That's what I wrote in my initial post:

"(Yes I know that display 2 could be on top of display 1 on one computer
and could be on the right of display 1 on the next computer. In my
scenario, I assume they have all been configured the same on all
computers of my customer)."