For the last more than three years, I have been using a laptop. It was in the last month that we got a new LCD TV for our family. It was time to switch over to a new one. But that sparked an idea in my mind. The thought of looking at a 32" TV screen was thrilling for me as it was the first time for me. But what was more exciting was the fact that I will be viewing the TV screen as my laptop screen.

However, I had to go through some technicalities and it wasn't certainly a walk in the park for me. The first thing is that I am not acquainted with any kind of hardware to solve the problem on my own. However, I got a VGA cable from my vendor from where I had purchased my laptop after contacting him. Things were not easy and there were some practical problems as it was the first time I was attempting something like this.

When I connected my laptop to the TV, I viewed the normal laptop screen like a TV screen. That was the beginning. However, in the excitement, I forgot asking him how I would switch off the laptop screen and run the TV screen only. After all, running two screens simultaneously wasn’t going to be wise enough, isn’t it? This thing was new to my laptop vendor as well and that put me in a fix.

I searched the web to get some answers and was looking for some possibilities. The thing that really disturbed me was a plain “no” from the vendor who told me that I will have to keep both screens running. But my mind was not ready to accept this fact. Keeping two screens on was against any kind of logic. So, I tried ‘investigating’ the matter on the Internet.

I scoured for the answers on various web sites. I tried putting the entire query in the search box to get the most suitable answer. But either the answers were for Mac or for different versions of Windows. I wanted the solution for Windows XP. Finally, I decided to put my question on a forum that I regularly visit. I was confident of getting some answers there.

So, what did I do to solve my problem?

The first thing I would like to mention is that the intention of writing this article is, if there are people around who are looking for solution to similar query, my experience and this article would be of great help to them all. They won't have to waste time hopping around.

1. I connected my laptop to the TV screen through the VGA cable.
2. Then I opened the Control Panel --> Power Settings.
3. Here, I navigated to the "Advanced" tab. There is a list of "Power Buttons". 
4. I chose the first one - When I close the lid of my portable computer -- and there are some options to choose from.
5. I selected 'Do Nothing' and clicked on 'Ok'.
6. After that I checked if closing the lid made any difference or not. It worked fine for me.

I hope these steps will help someone in need.