How To Game On One W/ Desktop On Other

I have a new Win 7 set-up, and while I'm currently using my older (yet still great) CRT monitor, I just bought a nice LCD monitor, so I'll have two.I game often, but it'd be great if I could have the game up on one full screen (not sure if it's possible to do this or it must be played in a window) and an application on the other.I understand that I would have to alt-tab to transfer between the two, which is fine, but what I think would be most useful would be to, say, have the keyboard commands for the game (from a text file, .pdf, picture, etc.) on the second monitor, while I play the game on the first. Other good examples would be to have a map of the game (again, a picture found online, not a map from the game itself, to be clear) or spreadsheet of stats up on the second screen that I could reference during play.I ask because my understanding is that there are three modes for using dual monitors in Windows 7. One allows you to run both as one big desktop. The other mirrors the screen, so you have the exact same desktop duplicated. The final has one off and the other on.

This makes it sound as if the only option is to have the game run in a window on one screen and then open the application, picture, whatever sized to the other. What I was hoping for was to have the game fill the entirety of one monitor and have the desktop confined to just the other, and alt-tab between the two.