Desktop to Laptop, can it be done ?

Hello,

I'm new here... This seems like the place that gathers a good
bunch of people...

I have what I think to be a simple question.

I have always used a desktop to do all my school work and web
searching. Recently, I bought a laptop. Unfortunately, I have one
of those huge old monitors that take up way too much space.
What I would like to do is, run my desktop off my laptop screen,
as needed, and use my laptop keyboard as well.

Can I do this? And if so, what do I need? I have looked online but,
it's hard to look for something that you don't know what you are
looking for, you know.

Thanks for any help, much appreciated in advance -

 

There is No way to access Laptops Screen and Keyboard as an outside input.

You can network the Laptop to the desktop and use remote control program, but it might be slow.

http://www.ezlan.net/vnc.html

You might be better of loading the software and transfer the files to your laptop.

 

If you are using XP Pro then Remote desktop is your answer. It's built right in. They just need to be networked. I use it everyday, in fact Im using my laptop now remoted into my desktop upstairs. It's not slow, even on an 802.11g card encrypted with WPA. VNC works well too but there is some ovedrhead and can be slow at times. The difference is Remote desktop will log the computer out as you log into it from the laptop, VNC will keep the desktop logged in and you can actually see the mouse movements and everything else that the laptop is doing. It works great on my 10 year olds computer, for I can VNC into his computer at anytime and check on what he is doing . VNC is free if you follow the link Cat5 gave you. Install is two part
1. the server
2. the client
good luck