I keep my laptop tucked away and solely use an external display with it via HDMI. In Windows 7 display settings, I have it set up to "Show desktop only on 2 [my external display]" This works fine in all cases except when I boot the laptop when the external display is already connected. In that case, the laptop's display stays on and sticks at the Windows 7 boot logo unless I manually shut the display off. (I should mention that while the laptop's display is stuck at the boot logo, the external monitor and computer are running just fine.)
The laptop is an Asus N56VZ with Nvidia 650m graphics and the latest drivers. I've checked Nvidia's control panel as well as the BIOS and nothing looked very promising.
Any ideas as to how I can get my laptop screen to shut itself off after booting into Windows?
Edit 1
For clarification, if I boot the laptop without the external display plugged in, and THEN plug in the HDMI, the laptop screen shuts off and the external monitor works as it should.
Edit 2
Thanks to the answer from @harrymc I now have something working. I created a batch that switches the laptop display to primary and then back again (Simply setting the external display to primary doesn't work and the laptop screen stays "stuck"):
ECHO OFF
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK
DisplaySwitch.exe /internal
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK
DisplaySwitch.exe /external
Unfortunately, the change in resolutions causes my windows/icons to become messed up which then need to be resized, so it's really just trading one annoyance for another.
On to more testing!
Best Answer
The free command-line utility Display Changer can be used to write a batch file that will set the external monitor to be the primary.
You could then add the batch file to Start / Programs / Startup, so it runs every time.
Test first if the script fails when the external monitor is not connected, so as not to leave you without a monitor in this case.