CyberNotes: How to Change the Primary Monitor on a Laptop
Tutorial Thursday
When hooking my laptop up to an external monitor, the first thing that I like to do is extend my desktop over to that monitor. That way I am able to use my main monitor, but I am also able to utilize the screen on my laptop which practically doubles the amount of screen space I have to work with.
The only problem is that Windows has never let me choose which monitor is the primary one, and by default it always sets my laptop to be the primary display. I don’t like this because I have my main monitor in front of me, and my laptop sits more off to the side. Despite there being an option to choose which monitor is the primary one in the Display Settings, it has always been grayed out for me. After several hours of messing around, I have finally been able to figure out a solution that should work for everyone who has that option grayed out.
On Windows Vista, the grayed out option reads “This is my main monitor” while on XP it says “Use this device as the primary monitor.” The two options mean the same thing, but the wording has been changed in Vista.
The reason that the option is grayed out is because some graphics cards don’t support changing the primary monitor. Well, they do, it just takes a little trickery to get it done. It won’t take you long to do, and doesn’t require you to download any additional tools or hack the registry. I was actually surprised at how easy it is after I figured out how I could get around it:
- Here’s what I’m starting out with: the monitor on my laptop is enabled and my external monitor disabled:
- The first thing you need to do is to enable only the monitor that you want to be the primary one. This is done by pressing the Function (Fn) key on your laptop along with the “F” key that switches the display. There should be either a picture of a monitor on the “F” key or it should say something like “CRT/LCD”. For me the key combination is Fn+F8:
- So right now I have my external monitor enabled, and my laptop screen is off:
- Now I open up the Windows Display Settings, click on the box with the number 2 in it, and choose the “Extend the desktop onto this monitor.” In this case the secondary monitor is your laptop and should be the one disabled:
- Now enjoy the bliss of having the Start Menu in front of you instead of off to the side:
Note: You can also reverse this process to have the Start menu show up on the laptop’s monitor instead of on the external monitor.
The cool thing is that Windows will remember this setting so that every time after setting this up, it will properly designate the primary monitor. As soon as you unplug the external monitor, Windows will then move the Start Menu back to the Laptop just like you would expect it to.
Hopefully this will help someone out there because I spent hours searching the Internet trying to figure it out before finally sitting down and trying to come up with a solution myself.
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Tags: CyberNotes, Software, Windows, How To, Tips And Tricks, Windows Vista, Windows XP
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I came across this problem a few weeks ago. That function didn’t work for me. What did work was going to “advanced” and then “displays” and changing the monitor to “1″ and the laptop to “2″.
That is essentially what this trick does, but I don’t have an option in my advanced settings to choose which monitor is 1 and which is 2.
Thanks, an excellent, much appreciated tip!
I also tried several times in the past with no luck. Thanks!
I’m glad to see that this is helping some people! It’s always nice to know when things work out for our visitors, so thanks for letting us know.
Thank you so much. This helps me SOOOOOO much..you are great.
No problem Aidan…I’m glad it was able to help you!
Thanks a lot dude; you solved my weeks old problem. I have had this annoyance at two different instances. A post on microsoft site completely denied that it’s possible to change primary monitor on laptop. I have an old laptop that I connected to my flat screen tv using VGA cable so as to browse internet on tv using wireless keyboard and air mouse. But the damn primary monitor issue forced me to have laptop screen open all the time sitting next to my big tv. Now I can conveniently slide the laptop with other set top boxes and use all features using keyboard only. Thanks again.
No problem…I actually knew that it must be possible because at some point Windows automatically did the switch for me. I still have no idea why, and it kinda pissed me off that Windows didn’t let me just check the darn box to pick the primary monitor.
This trick does not seem to work for me.
As soon as I click the box with a 2 that *should* be my laptop display, and click “extend my desktop…”, my computer simply defaults back to the way it was, with my external monitor as #2 and the laptop as #1…
bummer!
That’s weird Steve! I’ve used this on several different laptops now and the results are always the same.
You’re wonderful. Thank you.
This has been driving me NUTS this morning (wrong monitor being the primary) and Windows help is useless!
Thank you.
- David
You rock man, Thanks!! I was having this problem and your described fix worked perfectly.
No problem David and Dave!
Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed solution, worked perfectly and fixed the problem for me.
I have the same problem. Did you get it to work at all. BTW, I use a Toshiba Satellite.
thx
Thanks Ryan, this is a lot of help. One note on my experince is that my Compaq nc6400 uses the F4 key instead of the F8 key as you describe in your instructions. No worries though, it worked like a charm!
Glad you got it to work. A lot of laptops have different keys assigned to the monitor switching operation, but I figured people would catch on.
cool , I was trying this for good 2 hours and then I thought let me look on the web.Wow ,your solution works fine and when you disconnect the laptop from docking station , it just goes back to original setting..Thanks a lot , and Yes Damn MS for not guiding properly
It is great how Windows automatically switches between the two configurations properly. When you plug the computer back in to the monitor you should also see that it goes back to how you had configured it.
Hi, nice guide, worked on my old laptop.
Now I have bought an Acer Aspire 5100 series, and there doesn’t seem to be a CRT/LCD button, any ideas?
Hmm, you’ll have to look online to figure out how to switch between monitors. There has to be an easy way to do it for when you give presentations and such.
this work like a charm thanks for the help
I don’t seem to be able to utlilize the whole screen on the laptop when I use it as the secondary. The resolution on the monitors didn’t change but i get a “square” that I can use in the middle of the laptop that is usable. The outer edge is black????
You should be able to go into your display properties and adjust the resolution of the secondary monitor.
Hi Ryan,
I have a similar problem. I use a docking station and an external monitor for my laptop. I removed the computer to travel and now that I came back it’s wierd. When I boot up, the monitor works fine for most of the process but then shuts off and I can’t get it back on. Any Ideas?
wow, i struggled for almost 2 days with this and i can’t believe it was this easy…. thanks for the help man you just made my day!!!
thanks!! 5 Stars
Pressing the key combination a few more times should get it to turn back on. If not then there must be a compatibility problem with your graphics card.
No problem!
Thanks a lot!! Half way through the instructions I got a hang of how the whole thing works.
My Tech guys couldn’t work it out – but thanks to you problem solved quite eaisly!!!
Thanks for this tip and taking the trouble to document so nicely! Works like a charm
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Somehow this morning my second monitor became the primary and my laptop monitor went blank. Thanks for the FN F8 tip.
Your welcome, your welcome, your welcome! Glad we’re still continuing to help people with this simple trick.
Thanks a bunch!
For me, it simply showed a duplicate of my laptop screen on the external monitor after hitting the button. From here, I was unable to get the laptop monitor’s screen to be a secondary monitor.
However, if I start off by hitting the CRT/LCD button twice, and then continue with your steps, it works as advertised. Very useful, this should really be more publicized!
Thanks a lot- you da MAN~
This article is truly a public service. Recently, its helped me greatly because I’ve been hooking up to projectors. Once you know how it’s so simple, but if you don’t know, you just face endless frustration in the display settings window. Why this isn’t all around the net is a mystery. It’s like we’re supposed to born with knowledge of that magical key.
It’s actually my favorite article on the site, because it was something that frustrated me for a long time. I actually discovered this trick on accident when doing a presentation, and it thoroughly confused me at the time.
Thank you
Been waiting for this for a long time.
My problem was slightly different but your idea solved it.
Regards
Daniel
Wow, thanks allot! I tried a good deal of sites and thanks to you i finally fixed it!
i have the problem that i can get the desktop onto my monitor/tv but with no icons or taskbar just the desktop image. when i right click it sends the window back to the laptop.
This worked for me also. Mine is Fn+F5 (Toshiba Satellite A200-TH7, brand new back last October). Had to hit it twice. Thanks Ryan, and thanks netster007x. I’d probably have never bothered hitting it twice..
I have a problem with my Laptop screen. It has thick horizontal lines that will not let me see what’s there before. I think they are called “dead pixels” times a billion. I’ve been looking for a way to use an lcd monitor automatically when I turn my laptop power on. Thanks so much! I think this will do.
Yeah, sounds like your screen would need to be replaced on your laptop. Glad this worked out for you though.
Awesome. It works. I figured out how to move the task bar to the external monitor before, but everytime i opened something, it would be on the laptop monitor. now its perfect. thanks.
I get the whole function F* depending on your laptop to get the right screen as the primary. I extend the desktop to my laptop monitor as well. All this works fine.
What doesn’t work is when I unplug the monitor, my laptop is still the extended desktop. No taskbar, start menu, or anything. I am intelligent enough to quickly change the settings but this laptop is for one of our sales people. The least amount of work possible for switching between dual monitors and just one when they take the laptop home.
We are running Windows XP Pro. Thanks in advance.
That must just be how Windows XP handles it. I know with Vista it switches everything back over when you unplug the monitor. Sorry, wish I could have helped.
Just curious, how big’s that monitor? I’ll guess 22in.
Close… it’s a 24″ that we got an incredible deal on back in 2005.
Thanks. It works perfectly.
Much Obliged!
Excellent, worked first time, annoyed me for 4 weeks.
Wow, that did the trick! Thanks a lot
Complete non-issue under nVidia. ATI drivers blow.
This is awesome. I’ve been looking for EXACTLY this for some time now. You rule.
Thank you!
Thanks a lot for this Fix Really Worked.
Very useful. I got it working for me. Thanks!
Thank you!!! This was driving me nuts!!
it is really nice..
Thank you so much …. I did search for 3 hours just trying to figure this out … It was like a thorn in my foot, you know , some things are so simple that it is frustrating when you are not able to figure them out … tahts were I was . Thanks again .
I’ve been using a dual monitor setup in Linux Mint (an Ubuntu-based distro) successfully, with the external monitor being my primary. I have to use windows for flash development, and struggled with Vista for over an hour trying to set it up. After striking out onto the net for a solution I found your article and now have my preferred setup up and running.
As a side note, when I extended the desktop to my laptop monitor, I had to change the resolution, which was set to something like 640×480 8O.
Thank you thank you thank you!! Worked great!!
This doesn’t actually change your primary at all, all it essentially does is move your task bar and any associated programs into the window you selected (which you could have simply done by right clicking the task bar, unchecking lock the task bar, dragging it across to your other monitor and then moving the programs across). It doesn’t change your primary monitor for any programs that require being full-screened. The reason for this is that the primary monitor setting in a laptop is hardware related. No software changes, operating system changes, or drivers will affect this. All the RAM is dedicated to your laptop monitor. THe only way you can make a secondary display your primary display is to disable the laptop monitor completely, but then you wouldn’t have dualies.
Hey, I have an Aspire 5620, Windows Media Editon and I cant seem to get my Fn + F5 to work (The key with the to monitors I think).All my other Fn buttons work and before for somereason windows decided to let me change over for no reson,I tryed to edit something and now I cant get it back. Any Ideas??
Cheers,
Cameron
How to I do the same on a PC? I have exactly the same problem but on a PC not a laptop.
Ali
Awsome thanks!!!!
This issue has been frustrating me for the last 2 hours! In my case, however, the external monitor was the primary by default and I wanted my laptop to be the primary. Unfortunately, your fix didn’t work for me but I found out how to do it (using IBM Thinkpad with Windows XP Pro). Here it is, so simple: in the display dialog box, simply drag the little box with either the number 1 or 2 in it to the other side of the the other little box with the other number in it. Voila! I had no idea you could even drag those little @%$#@$# around!
THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH. I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS ALL DAY.THANKS MAN!
Oh man I’ve been looking for this for the longest time THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Nice one, thanks for this tip and well described too!
Pure genius, Thanks a million
Thank-you sooooo much!!! I’ve been living like this for about 6 months!!!! thanks again
Thank you, thank you, thank you…what a great service and very easy to use…even for me!
What a great article. This is exactly what we were looking for. And this was after i self-proclaimed myself as ‘King Of The Monitor’ here at work and then made myself feel like a fool when i could not figure this out with my peer group when we all got new monitors. i took a abuse for about 2 days.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Search for a day and then found your incredibly accurate and useful help. Bless you for taking the time and making it clear.
I have looked for days for a solution to this!!!!! Thank you!
I have a dead laptop lcd and manage to connect the video out to a CRT successfully using this article.
Problem is that I tinkled with the settings and now the CRT displays the extended desktop!
Anyone can tell me how i can get the CRT to be the main display again? I can no longer right-click and see the display properties window as my primary laptop screen is dead!
Help simple and very appreciated! thanks!
What a great tip! My remote desktop experience is 100% better now that it is full sized on my second monitor. Thanks so much!
Ok, I need help. the screen on my wife’s laptop went out,not just the backlight but the whole thing, and I talked her into just trashing it and getting a new one. Well it sat up in my closet for a few months until I had the bright idea to totally remove the screen and hook it up to a monitor and use it as a spare (render computer or download computer). Well, all was going good until the windows log-in screen came up. The monitor screen went black after that. I restarted the computer a few times and the same thing happened over and over again. I started the computer up in safe-mode and the monitor worked find, but when I tried it in normal-mode the screen went black again.
What can I do to make the computer forget about the screen I removed? How can I make the computer only see the external monitor I have it plugged into it.
Thank you SO much – I have played around trying to do this for weeks and finally it worked. If anyone is having trouble doing this and is a stupid as me, make sure you use the Fn and F8 key on the laptop keyboard! I was using the USB adapted keyboard
Thanks again!
Thanks Ryan,
You are my hero. Works perfectly. I love how it seems so simple after all the attempts. I can finally play my games on my sweet new flat screen.
hey on my computer it doesent have it either butit does have LCD in a squear then slash with a screen with an arow that must be it i thought then it was
Excellent, You’ve stop brain from hurting. Thank you very much.
Thank you! You helped me a lot!
You da man! I spent hours trying to figure this carp out!!!!! MANY THANK YOUs!!!!!!
this worked great. Thanks for the help, I spent too much of my time googling this and finally found the solution that worked! Again, thanks a lot!
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH! I don’t think we would have ever figured that out on our own.
A BIG thanks for this. I just cannot believe I have just spent 3 hours fiddling around and now this has fixed it straight away. The strange thing is, when I first set up my monitor it all seemed OK as primary without this fix, so of course today when it all screwed up I had no idea what to do….until I found your article. You even put photos and diagrams up! People like you are the salt of the earth, thank you!
Nice job – works like a charm!
you’re the best!! Easy to follow and to the point. Thanks so much.
Thanks a lot for this post. It helped me with a similar problem. I have a laptop with two external LCD monitors, and the laptop’s docking station only has one digital and one analog output port. I wanted the monitor on the digital port to be “my main monitor” but somehow the other monitor took over when I extended the desktop to it, and the option to set “this is my main monitor” was grayed out (in other words, I couldn’t switch it via the Display Settings dialog, much like your problem).
I managed to fix it by powering off the monitor I didn’t want as primary, and using the laptop’s monitor switching ability to make the desired monitor primary again. I also removed the USB cable from the “undesired” monitor (not sure if this was important or not). Then I powered on the “undesired” monitor, extended the desktop to it, and everything is finally the way I want it.
Thanks again,
Jason
Just another thank you for the tip. Bliss indeed. I had my laptop for over 6 months and gave up after failing to get the display the way I wanted. However, as I move the laptop between office and home attaching another monitor to it at both locations, one of the days recently it just happened that everything was in the place I craved them to be! So I decided to give it another shot today. Glad I didn’t stop at the top Google result from Microsoft telling me it couldn’t be done. Cheers,
PS. On a different matter, I had script debugging turned on in my IE and this page caused so many debug messages that I could have missed this great tip.
Well I’m not going to fiddle it any more myself but although the tip worked for changing the primary display to the external monitor, I had my laptop to the left of it and Windows XP kept switching the laptop LCD to be on the right every time after the screensaver had been on. This is very annoying too.
Awesome. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks.
You always take a chance f**king up your computer when the net is your tech advisor…not in this case – given, I was attracted to this sight by the organized and easy to read graphics; however, I am aware that unscrupulous members of the community on the net are setting traps that look like genuine credit service, bank and microsoft home pages that solicit your private information(phishing I believe it is called). NOT IN THIS CASE! You spelled “relief” for me…I am back in my computer cave after struggling for two days on my own (call in the violins)and trying to find an answer on my computer’s (Toshiba)website and microsoft’s WORTHLESS! help pages – neither had a simple to understand solution. I wanted my laptop to be my primary monitor – because I take it with me on busines trips and had to reset it everytime it was unplugged from my external monitor(flat screen). Cheers! I will visit your site again should I encounter more snafu’s with my equipment.
Awesome! I just got my monitor and came across this problem. This was the first link i found off Google so im glad it was one that was well written and correct. Thank you.
Thank you so much!
I have spent two years not being able to figure this out. Thanks for clearly documenting the steps. It worked like a charm!
Brilliant – my laptop disabled ‘This is my main monitor’ a few weeks ago, I found your article and it worked again.
I docked my laptop this morning and the option was disabled again. I’ve now bookmarked your article!
Thanks!
oh thank goodness i found this! saw so many threads with so much useless information – thankyou thankyou thankyou!!
Thank you!
I had mine set up the same way, but while booting this morning, I had the external connected to a server on my workbench via a KVM switch. This confused Windows and reversed my “primary” monitor back to my laptop display and I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to switch it back. This did the trick.
Hi, unusual question. Thought I would just check to see if you happen to know. We are using a Mac laptop but running Windows. Keyboard is different. Trying to figure out your workaround but not having any luck. Ideas?
Ok, fixed it in a Mac forum here (in case anyone finds this post before the Mac one and would like the link): [discussions.apple.com]
Thank you so much. This helped me big time. I was so frustrated.
I did just that and the task bar is on my external monitor like I wanted but now I can’t use the laptop monitor for some reason…what did I do wrong and how do I get to work with both monitors?
I must say you’ve saved me from selling my perfectly working laptop because before this I had computer “pros” (a company that fixes computers where i’m from) they told me it was junk. I think they should be arrested for false advertisement b/c clearly they’re no pros, u should hold that title! thanks for saving my laptop!!
Thanks! Been irritating me for a while now, nice simple fix!
You rock. You saved me a ton of time and pain. Thank You So much.
Great. I spent whole afternoon to find the answer. Yours is the best. Thanks a lot!!!
Wonderful trick !. Solved lot of my R & D time. Many Thanks
Thank you very much!!!!
hey thanks man!!!! much appreciated!!
Thanks ryan…If you hit fn+f8 twice then both your labtop and external monitor will show the same thing.
Thanks I was having the opposite problem for some reason. I wanted my laptop to be my primary and the monitor to be the secondary but it automatically put it the other way. This helped me though. I just did it in reverse of your indstruction. Thanks for the help. Now I can take over the world. HA hah HA
smile! 
Just what I was looking for…. Thanks.
Blissful indeed
thx heaps for that. Laptop monitor had failed and needed to use the secondary monitor. Couldnt get the Fn F8 to work so just closed the lid on the laptop while booting and it went to the secondary as primary automatically. Great short term fix!!! thanks again.
nice work helped me at work!
Hi – Can’t thank you enough for these instructions. Was struggling and giving up and then trying again. I was going nuts!
Super of you to take the time to share – clearly from the comments you have helped a ton of folks.
Thanks again!
You’re a saint. I have been cussing this computer all morning. You’re article helped me get the monitors straighten out in no time. Thanks
What a top man you are, been searching for two hours trying to sort this out.
Cheers buddy. Have a good weekend!
Thanks a lot dude!
I owe you one! 
Thanks a lot, worked a treat
thanks so much…. just spent most of the morning tearing my hear out – all sorted
Thank you for this article and the pictures showing each step. My husband had both our laptops hooked up to larger monitors and something happened to his and would NOT let him fix it. We went through these steps which were different from what he did the first time, but which WORKED! If only we had saved ourselves an hour of frustration and googled the problem earlier. Thanks again.