Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Skika

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
2,999
1,246
I have an external Dell ISP display which i would like to use in combination with the built in display. But i want it to be the primary, meaning it would have the dock and the menu bar etc.

Is this possible ?

I have an early 2011 15 inch MBP.
 

slinxy

macrumors newbie
Jan 28, 2012
9
0
yes, in display arrangement; drag the white tool bar at the top of the box to the box representing the external monitor.
 

Andy88!

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2012
2
0
change primary display when macbook display no longer works

hi,

I have a similar request to skika, but I'm not sure how this forum works and whether this is the right place to post my question. Here's hoping...

My old macbook's display no longer works, although I think my hard drive etc is in tact. I want to retrieve all my files from my macbook and so want to view my mac through an external, secondary screen so that I can put all my stuff on to my external hard drive. I therefore want to make the external screen the primary display, but I cannot do this through system preferences because in order to do this I need to be able to log on to my mac and go to system preferences, but I can't see the screen to be able to do this.

A friend suggested that I connect my mac to the external screen and only then turn my mac on. This way, my macbook will choose the tv screen as the primary display, rather than the mac screen. I tried this and it seemed to work, but I didn't have time to start transferring files etc, so I left it until now. Now, when I try this is no longer works and the screen that shows on the tv screen is the blank screen that you would ordinarily drag windows from your mac over to. Do you see my problem? Not sure if I explained that all very well, or even if anyone will read it on here....

Many thanks

Andy
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.