Connecting a second monitor to a laptop is usually a piece of cake. Simply plug it in and use the special keys to set the bios to two monitor mode. I have a second monitor in my office at work and a second monitor by my TV chair at home.
You will need to configure the second monitor in XP and tell it where it is relative to your primary screen. XP is pretty good about this. It detects the type of monitor plugged in and matches the settings based on what you usually do. My primary monitor is to the left of the laptop at work, but I use the laptop as the primary with a secondary on the right at home. XP has “learned” this and sets up my desktop automatically on the reboot.
I forgot to mention that I also use MSVDM, Microsoft Virtual Desktop Monitor. It was a free download from Microsoft. This software gives me four different desktops. Since I use dual monitors, I get four separate sets of desktops.
I put my company email, Lotus Notes, in the first pair. Xwindow desktops to linux consoles go in the second pair. Open documents to read in Acrobat or Word go in the third pair. (The two are nice for cut and paste between documents.) Web browsers go in the last pair. (I prefer Firefox and usually have over 30 tabs open.)
I have about 1.25 GB of memory, but this is enough even with Lotus Notes running.
I can cycle through the desktops by using a button on the task bar.