How to get clamshell mode with Windows 7 on Macbook Pro

Hi,

I am running Windows 7 on Macbook Pro using bootcamp. In OS-X, I can use this cool clamshell feature wherein after putting the MBP to sleep by closing the lid, as soon as I connect an external keyboard, mouse & monitor, I get the display on the monitor and immediately start using the keyboard & mouse too, converting the laptop instantaneously to a desktop.

I am trying to do the same thing on Windows 7, close the lid of the laptop to put it to sleep, connect my external monitor, mouse & keyboard, but however the laptop never wakes up (even after moving the mouse & pressing keys in the keyboard). I tried several things in Windows 7. Under Power Options, Disabled "selective Suspend of USB", but that did not help. Next, in the "Device Manager", for the "Root USB Hub" & "Generic USB Hub", I tried to set "Allow this device to wake up the computer", under Properties -> Power Management, but that option is grayed out. I tried to experimented with Sleep types like S1, S2, S3, but except for S3, the other two are shown as "not supported by firmware" (using powercfg option in command line). Countless hours wasted on google search to get this working with no success

I would greatly appreciate any help on this issue.

Thanks,
Sri

You're going about in the wrong way. You need to set that up in your video options in Windows and then it will work. Open up your video control panel for whichever card you have (nVidia or ATI) and make sure your external monitor is detected and the correct resolution is set. Then use the video control panel option to switch the display to the external. Close the lid on your MBP.

From now on before booting into Win 7, close the lid, have your external keyboard and mouse hooked up, and you should be able to boot directly into clamshell mode.

That approach is not useful with a docking station

@chscag,

Thanks for the reply on this topic. Greatly appreciate the help. However, I think I should have framed my question better.

My problem is not that the external monitor does not get detected or I am not able to transfer display to the external monitor. The problem I face is, I must be able to keep switching between desktop mode (with external monitor/keyboard/mouse) and laptop mode, without requiring reboots (as is shown in the video from hengedocks here: YouTube - Henge Docks - MacBook Docking Station - Demo Video)

In fact, in my current setup, I am able to "use" the laptop like a desktop already. How I do this is as follows:

1) Close the lid, this will put the laptop to sleep
2) Connect external monitor, keyboard & mouse
3) At this point in OS-X, as I mentioned in the original post, once I touch a key in my external keyboard, the laptop (which was in sleep after I closed the lid) wakes up (voila!)
4) The problem is with Stupid windows which does not recognize the fact that I have connected external monitor/keyboard/mouse and still remains asleep even after pressing keys in the external keyboard & moving the mouse.
5) At this point, so far, I have been using a workaround, wherein, I open the laptop for a fraction of a second, move my finger over the touchpad & immediately close the laptop. This springs the laptop to wake up state, and when it wakes up, it recognizes my external devices, shuts down my internal display & starts behaving like a desktop
6) But now, I have the hengedocks docking station, and so I cannot use that workaround because, once I close the lid & drop the laptop into my docking station, I cannot open the laptop for that fraction of a second to wake it up.

OS-X does not need that "open the lid for a second" step, because even while the laptop is asleep, OS-X recognizes the fact that external devices have been connected to its USB ports, responds to the stimulus from the external devices & wakes up from sleep automatically. I need to figure out a way to get Windows7 to do that too...

Hope I was able to ask my question better this time. And sincerely hope you or anyone has a solution to this peculiar riddle.

Hey, I'm sure you have your answer by now, but for the sake of anyone else having the same problem who ends up here, I have a solution.

I use a hengedock for my mbp so it's constantly closed when I'm working using external peripherals. When I started running Windows 7 on Bootcamp I was more than a little annoyed when it suddenly stopped being so simple. But I've now got it back to the good old days, and here's how I did it:

Go to Start> Control Panel.
Bring up more options using the drop down arrow in the address bar.
Select "all control panel items'
Select "Power options"
Select "choose what to do when closing the lid" (it's on the left)

Then change the option 'sleep' to 'do nothing'.

Problem solved! Hope this helps.