Can I use a Laptop (Windows XP Pro) as an additional monitor with my MBP?

[redwarrior]

Wirelessly? Ethernet? USB? Which is easiest to set up? And will speed be an issue?

I have the 17" MBP but need more screen real estate. My mom gave me a $300 dell laptop, so I was hoping to be able to make this work and not have t spring for an additional monitor.

I've tried SynergyKM and can't seem to make it work.

Hardware is not my forte, so please keep it simple. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[nplima]

hi

Synergy is exactly what you need to use. With Ethernet will be better but Wi-Fi will probably do nicely.

Tell us where you left off with configuring and using Synergy, what were the symptoms of the problem and it will be easier to help out.

Wirelessly? Ethernet? USB? Which is easiest to set up? And will speed be an issue?

I have the 17" MBP but need more screen real estate. My mom gave me a $300 dell laptop, so I was hoping to be able to make this work and not have t spring for an additional monitor.

I've tried SynergyKM and can't seem to make it work.

Hardware is not my forte, so please keep it simple. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[redwarrior]

Thank you!!!!

Ok, I did a few screen shots, cause I don't know much about networking or hardware. Here's the setup on my Mac. I'm going to retrieve the dell from my son and let you know what's happening there.

Edit:
Ok, I have the MBP set up as the server, and the laptop as the client. You see here the screen shots with the connection refused message in the second one. The error I'm getting on the laptop side is: "WARNING: failed to connect to server: address not found for: Mac"

 

[nplima]

hi,

My first impression is that you have found two problems:
1) the server (MBP) is blocking this kind of traffic - this needs to be corrected in the Firewall settings. That is under system Preferences|Sharing|....

2) I'm not sure if your Dell is "seeing" the Mac on its network neighbourhood. An exception to Windows firewall must be added manually.

 

[redwarrior]

MBP - I enabled file sharing, screen sharing, and web sharing in my preferences.

Dell - I turned off the windows firewall.

I am correct in using the MBP(computer I want to be using) as the server and the Dell(additional monitor) as the client, right?

 

[jhsfosho]

Are you wanting to use the XP pro desktop on the laptop or extend your MBP's desktop onto the secondary display (XP pro laptop)?

If you want to use both XP pro and OS X simultaneously with the same keyboard and mouse with smooth transfer between the systems, then use SynergyKM.

If you want to have a OS X extend its desktop to the XP Pro laptop check out Screen Recycler.

 

[redwarrior]

Are you wanting to use the XP pro desktop on the laptop or extend your MBP's desktop onto the secondary display (XP pro laptop)?

If you want to use both XP pro and OS X simultaneously with the same keyboard and mouse with smooth transfer between the systems, then use SynergyKM.

If you want to have a OS X extend its desktop to the XP Pro laptop check out Screen Recycler.

Yes, that's exactly what I want to do. Use my MBP and just use the XP Pro laptop as an additional screen.

I have Screenrecycler now (trial version for now), and I installed RealVNC on the XP laptop, but it's still not connecting. I set the port to 6900, which is what Screenrecycler told me. And I pinged the laptop with no problem.

Screenrecycler status is "Awaiting Connection."

When trying to connect with RealVNC to Mac.local, I get the error, "unable to resolve host by name: No such host is known. (11001)

When trying to connect with RealVNC to the IP address, I get the error, "unable to connect to host: Connection timed out (10060)