Lock full screen video with dual monitors
March 3, 2010 – 16:41You can never have enough screen space, especially when you are a multi-tasking addict like me. I have been using dual screen setups for years now and i’m not alone. A lot of people use two, three or even more monitors at work and at home. Thing is, in all those years using multiple screens I find support for it in all kinds of software is minimal. I don’t know of any games that take real advantage of multiple screens, most software doesn’t have genuine supprt for multiple screens and what bothers me most, no video player has decent dual screen features.
I like to ‘watch’ video will i’m working or surfing the internet. My major problem is when I start a video and enable full screen as soon as I click in the other monitor the video player resizes to default resolution. All web video players do this. It doesn´t matter if it´s Silverlight, Flash, Windows Media Player or even Youtube´s new HTML5 player they all refuse to stay fullscreen when using the other screen. So, since all web video players show this behavior one might think the root of the problem isn’t in the web players but probably browser or operating system related. I’m a Windows user (Win7 at the moment), so that will be the start of my research. First test: Windows’ default player Windows Media Player.
A small success, with full screen enabled I’m able to use my other screen as I like. But my main focus is on web video players so this will prove it’s not the operating system being the problem. But let’s do a another quick test to rule out the OS. I’ll use the free open source player VLC Media Player. It works, again I’m able to use my main monitor while full screen is enabled in the VLC Media Player. I think it’s fair to say it’s not Windows preventing the player to stay full screen when using another monitor. This is good to know because this will come in handy when you have the deeplink of the video or livestream you’d like to watch full screen at that moment. Next up, browser testing.
For some, it might be obvious that the browser is the problem. This because your browser is continuously ‘listening’ for click actions. Once you click somewhere in your main screen you browser window playing the video will lose focus and exit full screen mode. I don’t think this is something developers can enable using their own build players because of this. Aobde and Microsoft claim it is because of security issues and it is not possible by design. The tests as shown below kind of explain this theory:
| Firefox | Chrome | Internet Explorer | |
| Flash | X | X | X |
| Silverlight | X | X | X |
| Windows Media Player | X | X | X |
X – Video does not stay maximized when losing focus
Solution
According to a reply to a bug report on Adobe there’s nothing that can be done when using Flash Players: ”We understand that many users would like fullscreen on one monitor and to be able to interact with your OS on another monitor. However, due to security requirements, we require that Flash and Browser must be the current focus of your OS. Apologies if this causes any workflow or usability issues. We will continue to review our security policy and consider changes in the future.”
No matter what Adobe might be saying there is a solution regarding Flash it’s players. You can replace npswf32.dll file for a modified version which allow you to have a Flash video player stay maximized while you are using the other monitor. Of course you can also hex edit a flash binary youself. (More info) (Download modified npswf32.dll) Apparently unchecking “Hardware Accelerating” also fixes it but I don’t want to disable my hardware accelartion. (Right click on the video, Settings…..)
Now how about Silverlight and Windows Media Player? In a podcast from december, which a can’t find no more, I heard that the Silverlight team is currently fixing this. Searching some more on this topic brings us the news this feature will not be released untill Silverlight 4. According to Mike Taulty “A Silverlight 4 application can go full-screen without those security limitations if that application marks itself as requiring elevation at installation time ( i.e. it’s a trusted application ) and in that case the security sandbox is relaxed and one of the things that enables is full-screen apps without those security restrictions.”
So i’ll guess we have to wait for Silverlight 4 for this functionality. On the other hand Windows Media Player will play all video that a Silverlight player could show. So searching for the deeplink and copy/pasting it into Windows Media Player will also work. This because Windows Media Player will stay full screen when losing focus as said earlier in this article. Finding the source or deeplink can be done by looking at the embed code of the object in the source code of the webpage it is embedded in or look for it using Firefox web developer plugin Firebug.
It seems the solution stopped working in Google Chrome after the latest updates. Thanks to Henrik there’s a solution:
“Hey, i use chrome, and they recently applied an update, which invalides this operation to flash.
The solution is simple though:
In your chrome install folder (which usually is):
C:\Users\Heknu\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\5.0.375.86
Replace the gcswf32.dll with the file downloaded modified file (npswf32.dll) and ur good to go 
U might want to keep your original chrome file, just in case. And if chrome release another update, the solution might just be the same ”
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15 Responses to “Lock full screen video with dual monitors”
I had been wanting to setup a dual screen system for myself for quite some time. It wasn’t until last Xmas that I was finally able to treat myself and splurge on a n 4850×2 graphics card, and two 21.5″ 1080p AOC monitors. As soon as i got everything setup the first thing that i thought was that I can’t wait to get a third monitor.
By Dual Screen Fan on Mar 14, 2010
What works for me is to enlarge the browser to full screen on my 2nd monitor and then I DO NOT use the full screen option on the video. Instead I press Ctrl+ about a dozen times to enlarge the video to the size I want it, then use the scroll bars to center the video on the monitor. Presto… the video is enlarged and WILL NOT resize when clicking anywhere. The only problem is the scroll bars do show, but that is no biggie for me as long as the video remains large.
By Chuck on Mar 15, 2010
That’s a nice workaround Chuck! I’ll keep that one in mind, thank you.
By KaiserSoze on Mar 15, 2010
I just got a second monitor recently. All that did was make me realize that 3 monitors is much more practical than 2 in my opinion.
By Dual screen fan on Mar 18, 2010
So I’ve read through the first few paragraphs a couple of times and it is late so I could be missing something, but I don’t see where you mention what you actually did to stop WMP from exiting full screen on the second monitor.
By Belu on Apr 1, 2010
I clicked somewhere on the first monitor, but it will exit full screen as soon as you would do anything that makes the focus go to the first screen. But as sais above this only applies to the Windows Media Web Player/Plugin. Windows Media Player playing a video file from my hard disk will stay full screen when losing focus.
By KaiserSoze on Apr 1, 2010
Thanks for this! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, and even requested it as a feature for DisplayFusion Pro.
By Rob Hayes on Apr 24, 2010
Worked for me. I am running win 7 x 64 and figured it wouldn’t work. I downloaded the file, closed all web browsers, searched the windows directory for the .ddl, BACKED UP ORIGINAL FILE and replaced it. Works with Safari but not Fire Fox but that is fine in my book. GOOD LUCK!
By Jworm on Apr 25, 2010
Man this has been bugging me for the last year. I just tried your fix on xp, IE8 and Firefox. Works perfectly on Firefox using Youtube and BBC iplayer.
Thank you very much for the fix.
just for ref on XP the file is here.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash
By terry on Apr 29, 2010
You DLL file replacement works perfectly, thank you very much for this. Using it on Vista with firefox. Genius.
By Dan on May 15, 2010
Hi,
i don’t find the npswf32.dll file,
On vista 64 Bits.
Adobe flash player works fine…
By Benj on May 28, 2010
@Benj
you’ll probably find the .dll file here: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromedia\Flash folder
By KaiserSoze on May 28, 2010
Hey, i use chrome, and they recently applied an update, which invalides this operation to flash.
The solution is simple though:
In your chrome install folder (which usually is):
C:\Users\Heknu\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\5.0.375.86
Replace the gcswf32.dll with the file downloaded modified file (npswf32.dll) and ur good to go
U might want to keep your original chrome file, just in case. And if chrome release another update, the solution might just be the same
By Henrik on Jul 1, 2010
Thanks Henrik, good tip! I’ll add it to the article.
By KaiserSoze on Jul 2, 2010