I have a mid-2011 21.5" iMac with a Thunderbolt port. Can I use this port to have the iMac act as a external monitor for my Windows 7 laptop that has a DisplayPort video output?
The MacOS Help Center topic "Use another Mac as a display" only describes the ability to use the iMac as an external display for another Mac and doesn't say if it would work for a Windows PC:
If you have an iMac with Thunderbolt, any other Mac with Thunderbolt
can use it as a display.
Also, the Apple support site states the following:
iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) and iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) support Target
Display Mode via Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable (2 m) when the
source is another Thunderbolt-equipped computer.
Specifically the laptop is a Dell Latitude E6500, which is not a "Thunderbolt-equipped computer" — so I'm essentially looking to see if there is a known solution for converting the DisplayPort output of the laptop into an iMac-compatible Thunderbolt format.
Best Answer
From here, emphasis mine:
From here:
Since you have a Thunderbolt Mac, you cannot use it as a display for DisplayPort output.