Setting Primary Display

Depends on whether you have nVIDIA gfx or ATi gfx in the 8200.  nVIDIA had some trouble with easily switching primary & secondary while ATi has it nicely in their ATi Displays tab in Advanced properties.

As I recall on nVIDIA, you have to do some non-intuitive stuff but it was do-able.  Try this:

1)  Fn-F8 until in CRT-only mode

2)  Go to the Settings tab in Display properties and extend your desktop.

At that point, I think nVIDIA saw the active display (CRT) as primary and activated the other (LCD) as secondary.

If that doesn't work, maybe it was playing with the nVIDIA control panel stuff for dual display, activating clone mode and from there, I think you can change primary and secondary while in clone.  Then go back to Settings tab and try extending desktop.

I think one of those two ways used to work for me.  It's been a while and I've been spoiled by ATi's control pane with my 9600 on I8600 :-).

Good luck,

vandal

I have the exact same problem.  I have an 8600 Inspiron that I got in January 2004 and I just connected an external Dell 20.1" LCD to use with photoshop.  I cannot get the LCD to be the primary.  The grayed out boxes in display/settings can't be changed for the laptop as primary or the LCD to become the primary.  This may be a laptop problem and might be OK with a desktop and 2 monitors.  I checked the forums and all trouble shooting on dell and all advice says to change the checked box in setting from primary or to primary but not allowed.  I just wrote Dell technical with our common question and if I get a good answer, I'll let you know.  If anyone else knows what to do please us know. 

I've been getting Dell technical help (very quickly) but not useful yet.  I went over the Dell Inspiron 8600 owner's manual again and under keyboard Shortcuts for system functions I found a function key that sends the output from the laptop screen to an external monitor (LCD to CRT).  By pressing the Fn key and the F8 key  (hold both of them down for at least 5 or 6 seconds).  Both screens (laptop and LCD external monitor) will go blank (dark) and within a few seconds the output from the laptop will be switched to the external LCD monitor.  The laptop screen will go blank.  On the external LCD right click the desktop, select properties, then in properties select settings, and then select Identify near the bottom of the screen.  You will notice that the external LCD has become the primary #1 screen and the #2 screen (laptop) is inactive (but not primary).  Check the box for "extend my windows desktop" and select apply.  You should now have your #1 screen as primary for the external monitor and #2 screen, the laptop, as the secondary.  The screen pointer should also now go across the external monitor on the right hand side and extend into the left hand side of the laptop screen.  You may need to adjust the screen resolutions on each screen.  When you power down the laptop (from the external monitor #1) and everything is off, the next time you power up your lappie the external LCD will still be the primary screen (it doesn't change).  If you want to go back to the laptop as primary you can again press both the FN and F8 keys for 5 or 6 seconds and the switch will occur so that the laptop will be the primary (note:  it appears that you can press these functions at any time during a session or even in the middle of a document, editing, etc. and the switch will occur).

Good Luck