I want 2 monitors to work

I have a dell laptop that I want to use as a karaoke base. I want to be able to look at my monitor and set up songs while the singer looks at a second monitor and sees only the song lyrics. Is there something I have to do within the laptop to make this possible? My software has a way to set up a second monitor but it keeps telling me that it cant find the second one. I currently have it hooked up to the back and playing a duplicate image of my laptop.

Thanks

 

For it to work, it shouldn't be configured as a duplicate, but rather as independent monitors. That way, you can place whatever windows you want on either of the two monitors.

 

Thanks. I wasn't sure that could be done. Can you tell me how to do that? All i have done so far was to plug the second in the back and hit Fcnt-F8 - i believe.

Thanks

 

Depending on what Dell you have, hit Fn-F8, that click it until you see your desktop on both monitors, if you are running Vista, a dialogue should pop up and ask if you want to run extended desktop, this is what you want to do, that will allow you to drag windows over to second monitor, or in XP, go to Control Panel>Display>Settings and see if your monitor is there, you should be able to figure something out in there (I cannot atm because I don't have second monitor plugged in, but if I get time later, I will)

 

Thank you all for the help. I think I have it worked out. Maybe not optimally but that will come with time.

 

Fn-F8 should work. Worst case, in the driver properties, setup extended desktop.

You will then want a dual monitor utility like Ultramon. I have used it for years and swear by it on dual monitors.

If you post exactly what you are trying to do, we might be able to help further.