Unfortunately, most applications do not take advantage of multiple monitors. Even at the OS level, I often find myself frustrated by the fact that the windows taskbar only shows on the primary screen. (FYI: you can download a third party applications like UltraMon to address this issue).

Multiple monitors are probably the quickest way to improve your productivity (next to learning how to type without hunting and pecking). Due to this fact, most of the IT people in my organization are already using dual monitors. For example, I commonly find myself in the situation where I have a software requirement spec (SRS) open on one monitor and Visual Studio open on the other. If I had only one monitor I would either have to ALT-TAB, or print out the SRS document (not very green). In any case, being able to view multiple windows at once is definitely a time saver and productivity booster.

Fortunately, the Microsoft Visual Studio team must have also made the connection about productivity gains from using multiple monitors. In VS2010, any tool pane or window can be split across multiple monitors. The keyword here is multiple, which means two or more. I can't tell you how many times I have been developing a ASP.NET form where I would have liked to see the designer, the code behind and the style sheet on three separate screens at the same time.

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