need help setting up a monitor?

I’m sure there is a better place to post this, I tried to post in the dummy section, but couldn’t? Any way I’m sure one or more of you gamers have done what I’m trying to do!
My pc is in the shop for a week, due to my bad eyes, I would like to use My 19” Dell Flat screen with my Acer 3270-6637. I used to do it all the time with my old Sony!
I downloaded the dell driver, plugged in the monitor. I get the desktop background and can see my mouse if I move it off to the right of my notebook. Any thing else I do dosen’t show on the dell. And the strange part, when my screen saver comes on. I get the left half of it on my notebook and the right half on the dell. What’s going on? The half I get is clear as can be. I probably will need the dummy instructions, the way things are going!
Thanks in advance!

 

If you want something on the monitor, drag the window off the right hand side of your notebook monitor and it'll appear on the dell monitor just like your mouse does.

Do you mean that you want stuff to be displayed only on the dell monitor, or do you want both screens to be displaying the same things at the same time?

 

Follow these instructions by:
Starting the laptop normally, then after it's started connecting the screen.

Right click on the desktop, go to personalize or properties depending on if it's Vista or XP.
Select Display settings (it'll be on the bottom of the list in vista, the right tab in XP).
In the drop down menu select #2.
Check "this is my main monitor" & "extend the desktop onto this monitor"
Then go back to the drop down menu and select #1.
Uncheck both of the boxes there.
Hit apply.

 

thanks, that did it!! My old eyes thank you too,
I'm guessing that when I get my PC back, I need to reverse this to use the notebook normally?