Sharing monitor with Mac Mini and Windows PC

[Noimus]

Hey guys I am about to buy a Mac Mini. My monitor uses VGA for it's connection so I know I have to buy some kind of cable in order to hook it up to my Mac Mini. I want to know is it possible to use that one monitor for both my Mac and Windows? I plan on buying the wireless apple keyboard and wireless mouse so I don't really care about the USB but its more so for the monitor since I don't want to unplug it from the Mac Mini everytime I need to use my windows PC. Thanks!

EDIT: Would it make a difference if I get a HDMI monitor? My next purchase before my Mac Mini is a 24inch HDMI monitor so I might need to use that for my Mac mini and desktop.

 

[opinio]

Hey guys I am about to buy a Mac Mini. My monitor uses VGA for it's connection so I know I have to buy some kind of cable in order to hook it up to my Mac Mini. I want to know is it possible to use that one monitor for both my Mac and Windows? I plan on buying the wireless apple keyboard and wireless mouse so I don't really care about the USB but its more so for the monitor since I don't want to unplug it from the Mac Mini everytime I need to use my windows PC. Thanks!

EDIT: Would it make a difference if I get a HDMI monitor? My next purchase before my Mac Mini is a 24inch HDMI monitor so I might need to use that for my Mac mini and desktop.

You can use one monitor if you get a KVM switch. KVM runs keyboard video and mouse on two separate computers. You will likely need the same video cabling for the mini as you use for the pc. A VGA KVM with USB mouse and keyboard is very common. You will just need a mini display adapter to VGA. Apple sells them.

 

[cutter74]

I believe you could also do without the KVM switch by connecting your PC to your monitor with an HDMI cable. You should then be able to select what your monitor shows by alternating inputs (VGA for your first PC, HDMI for your second) directly from your monitor or its remote.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I plan on buying the wireless apple keyboard and wireless mouse so I don't really care about the USB but its more so for the monitor since I don't want to unplug it from the Mac Mini everytime I need to use my windows PC.

Your best bet is to get a monitor with two inputs - HDMI (or DVI) for the Mac, and VGA for the PC. Then you just select the appropriate input depending on which computer you want to work with.

I did this for quite a while with my old 2007 Mac Mini and my Windows computer. After I got the 2012 Mini, I installed VMWare Fusion on it and cloned my Windows computer into a virtual machine - so now I have Windows running on the Mac, and the (big, ugly, noisy) Windows tower is gone.