PC laptop to iMac target

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Jonathan Brady

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Mar 17, 2020, 3:45:53 PM3/17/20
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Hi all.

My partner has a Dell PC laptop that she uses for work. We have a late 2013 iMac with two thunderbolt ports at the back but no obvious mini display port. Does anyone know whether it is possible to use the iMac as a target display for the Dell laptop? The Dell laptop has an HDMI port and a usb c port. I bought an HDMI to thunderbolt cable but I cannot get the iMac to enter target mode.

Thanks

Jonathan Brady

Sam - MacAmbulance

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Mar 17, 2020, 5:02:38 PM3/17/20
to 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group
Thunderbolt and DisplayPort use the same connector but I believe it only works with Macs. Apple cut off the feature in Mojave, so I doubt they’ve devoted much development time to making it windows compatible. I think it’s thunderbolt-only too, not just DisplayPort.
_

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Sam Mullen

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Jonathan Brady

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Mar 18, 2020, 9:24:43 AM3/18/20
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Thanks Sam. 

I figured it was probably a hiding to nothing but worth a try. 


On 17 Mar 2020, at 21:02, Sam - MacAmbulance <in...@macambulance.com> wrote:

Thunderbolt and DisplayPort use the same connector but I believe it only works with Macs. Apple cut off the feature in Mojave, so I doubt they’ve devoted much development time to making it windows compatible. I think it’s thunderbolt-only too, not just DisplayPort.

Jason Davies

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Mar 18, 2020, 10:43:47 AM3/18/20
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I've been hunting unsuccessfully for some software I remember seeing that allowed you to use a second computer as a display extension but I've not managed to find it. I'm sure it exist(ed) though so perhaps google it and you'll get more luck than me.

Cheers,
Jason



Cheers,

Jason

Toby Leighton

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Mar 18, 2020, 6:52:56 PM3/18/20
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Macs can easily hook up an ipad to use as an extended display, (feature called sidecar) and windows machines now with windows 10 can use another windows 10 machine as an extended display built into the OS as well.  So as always, if you stay in the apple ecosystem - easy, if you stay in the windows ecosystem - easy, but if you try and mix the two - punishment.  Software that you run on the two machines that bridges the two is whats needed, and I don't personally use any so can't recommend a specific one.

What I do personally use in this situation which may not be to everyone's needs but is adequate for my needs is a logitech bluetooth mouse and keyboard, that support this thing called logicech flow - https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/options/page/flow-multi-device-control  so my mouse and keyboard just control both computers side by side - but the computers are still independent of each other.

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