Thanks David and Gary for your response.
I am using a docked Dell Latitude D610 laptop.to a Dell 15" Sony
Trinitron Monitor. Once the laptop is powered up it behaves as if the
laptop is the only thing that is "turning on". The log in screen etc
appears on the laptop monitor. This goes all the way through to the
first appearance of the desktop and all the icons resuming their
proper images. Then, the laptop screen goes blank, other than the
deskptop pattern. A audible sound comes from the Trintiron monitor
then you can see it gradually waking up. The "Main Monitor stuff (?)"
like the clock strat menu and all the little icons that I would
normally refer to as the "Dock" on my Mac are now on the Trinitron and
I have a blank desktop pattern on the laptop.
I've already set up the laptop monitors' position to be to the right.
This alone is a very convenient set up. Mayn apps work intuitively
with this, including XP. Open a folder, drag it to the laptop monitor,
maximize it and it maximizes to the limitations of the laptop monitor.
Drag it back to the Trinitron monitor and it will only maximize to the
limitations of the Trinitron monitor. It will not spread out,
horizontally, to fill both monitors.
In Outloook, I can drag an open email to the laptop monitor, maximize
it to fill THAT monitor ONLY, then I can refer to that email when
looking at others or even when I'm in other apps.
This same technique works in Explorer, Firefox, iTunes and who knows
what else. With the exception of Outlook it does not work with the
Microsoft Office apps.
Before you can use two monitors with, let's say Excel, you have to
first un-maximize then stretch the main screen across both monitors.
Doing this you must be careful you don't drop your tabs off the bottom
of the screen. You can drage a single document to one monitor or
another but if you click maximize it spreads out to both. Unlike, what
Outlook, Explorer or the desktop. Its very easy to get messed up and
hard to manage workbooks if you're not careful.
You can still get a lot of two screen convenience with Excel but you
have to do a lot of draging and adjusting of windows and then this
status seems very volitale. For no apparent reason a work book will be
bleeding off the right side of the right monitor or drop down past the
bottom or shift up past the point of being able to clikc its menu bar.
If you open a second instance of Excel and put one instance on one
monitor and one in the other then this solves the problem of
maximizing bleeding all over the place or un-explained shape shifting.
However, you don't have the convenience of dragging workbooks from one
monitor to the other. You have to close it from one then reopen in the
other. You can't have editable versions of the same workbook open at
the same time in two different instances of Excel.
What puzzles me is:
1- Dialog boxes and userforms are not stuck on one monitor or
another regardless of the status of the main Excel window.
2- The two monitor convenience of dragging one doc to a second
monitor for reference, copying is so obvious AND even included in
Outlook and Explorer, why was it not included in the other Office
apps?
3- Micorosoft DID design this into the Mac versions of Office.
(which is why I'm tyring to figure this out because I absolutely loved
that abiltity on my Macs and would love to be able to do this on my
Windows machine!) In general, Office apps are slightly less funcional
on a Mac ( have you ever created user forms with pictures on a mac? ).
4- It would be one thing if all it took was a "stretch" across two
monitors but why all the squirlliness?
I was looking for a magic bullet solution to this and it looks like
I'll have to do it through
VB. I do understand the "split screen",
"new window" menu options. I used the new window option on my mac and
it is a dream come true when you want to copy/compare different areas
of the same worksheet (ON A MAC!). I wish I could do that same thing
with Windows...
I'm not one to pooh pooh one system over the other. They both have
their advantages and will one day be the same (is my guess) Being a
person who uses both systems A LOT I figure it will help to prevent
Alzheimers which runs in my family.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful responses and I hope this explains my
situation better.