Controlling display behavior on close of laptop lid

Greetings,

I've recently started using a new (work) laptop that came loaded with Vista. My last laptop, which I had for about three years, was running Windows XP, and at the time I made the switch to the new machine, I was pretty comfortable with the way that the machine operated and with the way that I had the system configured.

I'm trying to keep an open mind with regard to Vista; I try hard not to be an OS bigot, since part of the reason I started working with computers was because I enjoyed learning new things and trying new approaches. I've encountered a few problems, the most troubling of which (from a long-term viability perspective) are VPN-related. A number of my customers use VPNs with client software or connection methods that do not support or play nice with Vista. For now, I have workaround solutions that I can use for those customers.

One of the more irritating problems is something I have not been able to find any information on - how can I control what happens to the displays connected to the laptop when I close the lid? When I'm in the office, I typically have an external monitor, which I've configured to extend my desktop to. I sometimes need to close the lid of the laptop, whether it's to connect something to the rear of the docking station, or to hide the display while I step away from the desk for a few minutes.

On the old XP laptop, this would simply turn off the LCD display; the external monitor remained unchanged. That's how I would like my new laptop to work. However, on this new Vista system, when I close the lid, the desktop on the LCD display suddenly gets transferred to the external monitor, sometimes with drastic changes in resolution that muck up the desktop arrangement that I've spent some time setting up.

I think I've got the resolution change problem eliminated, but how can I keep the laptop LCD display from getting transferred to the external monitor? I have not found any settings that would seem to control this.

I removed the Lenovo Presentation Manager software, thinking that it might be the culprit, but that has not changed the behavior.

Details of the laptop:

Lenovo Thinkpad T61p
Vista Business x32
4 GB RAM
NVidia Quadro FX 570M video adapter
ViewSonic VA2026w external LCD display

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ted

Hi. Welcome, I'm a newbie too! Don't know if this is of any merit: I know on our Lenovo laptops in work you can change the display settings by holding down the Fn button and pressing F7 (on the laptop keyboard). This toggles the display window where you can specify how you want the displays to work. Seeing as you have uninstalled the Presentation Manager I don't know if this will still work. There is also a setting to control how the laptop works when the lid is closed. This can be found as follows: Control Panel > Power Management > Advanced Tab - Power buttons - When I close the lid...(Do nothing option). Don't know where it is in Vista though, sorry. I'm sure it's similar
Hope this helps!

Hi,

I've got the power settings configured to do nothing, and that seems to have no effect. The Fn-F7 key combination does work w/o Presentation Manager; it cycles through each permutation of Laptop-External-Both displays.

Ted

And you've tried Fn F7 selecting Thinkpad and analog external?

That's correct.

That kind of exhausts my limited dual display knowledge! Hope someone else can help

Type in powercfg.cpl,1. into command prompt or

Go to Start
Click on Control Panel
Power Options
Select Change Plan Settings
And Change Advanced Power Settings

and click on power buttons and lid