Hooking up PC Laptop and Mac Mini together. Possible?

no it's not. it's not possible for pc desktops either. the best bet would be a kvm with keyboard,mouse and monitor. sorry.

another option is to setup the mac with a borrowed monitor and run vnc on it..

unless your a l33t h@rdw@r3 h@x0r, i don't think it's possible

kvm, stands for Keyboard Video Mouse. u can use it on multiple computers to use one set of KVMs to work on the various systems. they come in basic 2:1 non-powered configurations up through powered 2:1 on up thru seemingly gazzilion:1 setups. some also come w/ audio/mic and USB ports as well as some having USB hubs built into them. (most w/ USB ports are simply for you to have a USB mouse and KB plugged into them respectively). as noted on the more complex ones, u can use one set of speakers or a microphone as well as any number of USB devices (ports allowing) via one hub.

i tried out an iogear one between my iBook and my desktop and it worked fine except the audio pass thru sucked. i imagine a powered one would remedy the situation. it was a pretty sweet setup though. some have manual switches to switch between the machines while the one i had was KB activated. i just hit scroll lock 2x, and it would shift the connection to the other machine, so the corresponding desktop pops up on the monitor and the KB and Mouse control the system. i actually had a USB>ps2 KB/Mouse adapter, so i ran both from one USB port and plugged my printer into the other one. was very cool being able to switch between the systems and have ready access to printer. u could do the same w/ scanners, digital cameras, etc.

if u had a KVM switch u could pipe your notebook vga port to the monitor along w/ the Mini, and run both from the mentioned KVM setup. nice thing about windows machines, is that u can manually assign what the computer will do w/ the lid closed. so u could choose to keep it open and possibly extend your windows desktop onto the monitor (ATI has hydravision...but the nvidia solution escapes me) if u want the extra space; or u could mirror it, set the system to stay on while the lid is closed and the LCD is switched off, and use your external monitor for working in the OS.

vnc... i'm not sure what he was referring to, maybe a typo for VPC? virtual PC software? meaning u could run your mac designed stuff in windows w/o having to switch between machines.

hope this helps.

kvm switch allows you to share one monitor, mouse, keyboard, and now typically usb devices between multiple machines, you press a (usually now) digital switch and that changes from machine to machine. VNC is an opensource "remote control" program that works cross platform. I believe that if you durn on remote desktop you can use any vnc client to connect.. but it may be that you can only use apple reote desktop (the main admin tool) to connect to vnc sessions.. i've never tried it the other way around. regardless if it worn't work, install a vnc server on the mini and you would be set.

yeah yeah, vnc, what he said. yet, the VPC is also a workable solution for most business or programming apps.

i use VNC to control my pc desktop using my powerbook wirelessly. the response time is not that fast unless you got the best clients running.

on my powerbook i use chicken of the vnc i am aware that it is not the fastest cleint, but it is easy to use.

on my pc i use ultravnc some guy told me that it is the best.

if it's hooked up already via the router u r all set for the file sharing. u need to go into the system preferences>sharing, and then enable windows sharing for the mini to show up on the network. u may also have to set your firewall software up in windows to allow access to your computer for other systems on the local address. most apps like norton and zone alarm have a pretty quick way of setting this up.

i'm not sure about trying to play DVDs over the network...doesn't your lappy have a DVD player? you could try using VLC as i don't know offhand if it does the same checks. personally i'd have my DVDs archived as Divx files, then watching over the network is a snap in either direction.