How to connect xbox series s for the first time without a tv?

The HDMI port on your laptop is likely only an HDMI out, so that you can hook it up to an external TV/monitor and output its display to that.

In order to display the Series S's output on your laptop's screen, it would have to have an HDMI in port.

What's the make/model of the laptop?

I have the Xbox series S/X. When I turn on my xbox it turns on as usual without any problems but when I switch to HDMI 1 or 2 on my TV it says "no signal" or "make sure connected device is turned on" when it is. And no nothing else is connected to the xbox.

So that fact that your laptop only has a HDMI OUTPUT kind of pretty much ruins any easy way of getting your console to work directly with your laptop.

As others have said you could stream your console to your laptop, but I get the feeling that you would have to tell your console to stream every single time, which I would have thought would require a TV or monitor.

Easiest way would be to just buy a cheap TV/monitor.

Not sure if direct connection is needed - or if you can use network cable and stream video over to pc.

Or xbox app or similar.

Ah yes, streaming is a possibility that I hadn't considered.

Do you have any kind of computer monitor at your home? One with HDMI would be perfect but HDMI to VGA/DVI can be bought pretty cheaply. Use the monitor to set up your console and then stream to the laptop (providing it is running Windows 10 that is).