diaglog boxes leaving the screen

[Cable Modem Tech]

I have a Dell inspiron 8200 laptop with the geforce 4 440 go card installed in it.. I also have a 18 inch dell flat lcd panel....
I was using the multiple monitor feature that is included in the dell driver. but in doing that everything opened up on the laptops monitor.... and i had to drag mostly everything onto the 18 inch monitor which windows saw as my " secondary display" I decited that i just wanted to use 1 display. it being the 18 incher lcd.... i removed the dell driver and installed a regular nvidia driver....... this let the 2 monitors " mirror" and then i set the lappy up to stay on when I close the lid.....
this is the way i want it set up...... the only problem is. that in some programs ( mostly the important ones) like Photoshop and Quick Books. diaglog boxes will just disappear when you click to open one up...... forcing you to blindly press keys to try to close it.......
for example. in quick books. If i go to print an invoice. when i hit print. it will bring up the print dialog box. but it is sending it to another monitor. that is not there. so i can not see the diaglog box....... this is a major pain..... i have also noticed the same problem if i unhook the laptop and just use it with out haveing it hooked up to the ext. lcd......
I have tried nvidia's n view software. and there are settings in there that seem like they would solve the problem. i just cant to seem to get that to work though....... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
CMT

[Kineda]

program updates??? service packs??? driver updates??? bios updates??? i would look into software updates as the fix for this....

[NooNoo]

There is usually a function key combo to set or unset use of an external monitor - something like Function F5...