Using a Macbook Pro as the keyboard (and screen?) for an external PC tower

Question

I recently was given the tower for an HP Compaq dc5800. I'm not planning on needing to interface with it very often, and I was planning on setting it up so I could access it remotely from my Macbook Pro (running Sierra V. 10.12. 15" circa 2011. 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor). For this reason, I don't have a display for it, nor do I have a keyboard. I was wondering if there was a way to boot it up onto my Macbook Screen and use the keyboard. I'm assuming it would require some sort of wiring initially (since I know how to do it wirelessly, I just need to be able to access it the first time in order to set it up wireless). Is there an easy/cost effective way to link the two? I'm really trying to avoid buying a screen and keyboard just for the sake of set up.

Answer 1

I'd borrow one for setup - pretty much impossible without - then use Microsoft's Remote Desktop for Mac [freeware from App Store] & access it remotely.

This is how I interact with all the PCs here - it's a lot better than the version for Windows, ironically.

MS's latest beta [that is a true Microsoft address] has many improvements, such as direct Cmd+C/V for copy paste across platforms, paste directly to Windows command line etc, though it's a bit of a memory hog at the moment, so quit it & relaunch periodically.

If it's running headless then your screen resolution would be quite low & non-adjustable, normally - but RD can specify the screen resolution for the remote connection, so that's your workaround.

There will be occasions when you might need to physically access it, but Remote Desktop ought to cover you for most usage cases.
It doesn't work if the PC is in safe boot - for that you'd need TeamViewer, which is free for home use, but drops the connection every 15 mins or so, so only use it if you need to access at safe boot.

Because you cannot reboot or shut down a remote machine whilst remoted into it, you would be wise to put a couple of batch files on its desktop, double click to action...

shutdown.bat
shutdown.exe /p /f

reboot.bat
shutdown.exe /r /f /t 00

Answer 2

You could borrow one.... IMO there is no way to get around using a mouse, keyboard and a monitor for initial setup. But once you've got that there are numerous things you can do. For example a wormhole switch cable something like this: http://www.j5create.com/our-products/wormhole-switches/juc400.html

Or a solution like TeamViewer so you can access the PC via the internet. Or RDP, VNC.. I could go on...

But in all fairness you can't set up one PC with another laptop easily or possibly if at all.