Hi, I would like to have a second monitor and was wondering if i could utilize my laptop's screen rather than purchasing a new monitor. Is there a way to do this and still be able to use the laptop as a separate system when required ?

Hi esdog.
There is no way I know of to use your laptop's lcd as a secondary monitor without the use of third party software like Maxivista, which in itself requires the systems be on a network.
You can do it the other way around if your laptop supports dual displays but the laptop screen has to be the primary and the crt the secondary.

There is software that you can download for free that let's you use other computers on a network as second monitors...

It also let's you support more then two monitors. I had 3 last time I tried (2 hooked directly to my computer and a 3rd one on a second computer).

BTW The second computer doesn't have to be very powerfull.

And all you have to do to get back to your laptop is disable the second monitor on the main computer (right click desktop>proprities then go to settings and uncheck extend my desktop to this screen). All this is is a program installed to the laptop that sits in the system tray. So if the desktop isn't extended you get the laptops desktop.

BTW The software I found also let you control the second computer from the main. You would have two seperate desktops but when you slid the mouse to the edge you jumped in to the other computer and you could control it using the same mouse and keyboard.

This is a page from microsoft but if you scroll down a little it shows how to use a laptop.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/s...p_multimon.mspx

BTW The program I was talking about is maxivista. You can download a free demo but you can also buy it for 20$.

Thanks for the help i will check it out