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I'm working on an app that runs on a Tablet PC. The tablet I have has no physical ports - only WiFi and Bluetooth.

I need to figure out a way to show the Tablet's display on a projector. Presumably the best way to do this is to hook a laptop up to the projector and then enable some sort of screen sharing between the tablet and the laptop.

Any suggestions on what screen sharing tool to use?

The tablet is running Vista. It's important that what we see projected is the same as the view (same resolution, stylus input) from the Tablet, so simply remoting into the tablet won't work.

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What type of tablet is it? Can you buy a docking station for it that has video out? –  Gren Aug 18 '09 at 18:23
Yes, we can. But it's hard to demo the portability of the tablet if you're tied to a docking station. –  Jason Aug 18 '09 at 18:28

6 Answers 6

I would connect a regular desktop machine or laptop to the projector, install a VNC server on the tablet and connect to this from the projector-machine.

This way you can use the tablet as normal, and have it displayed on the projector via VNC.

If you can set the screen resolution on the projector-machine to the same as the tablet, simply fullscreen the VNC viewer application and it will micmic the tablet display exactly. If you cannot do this, most VNC viewer applications can scale the image to fit the screen.

RDP will not work for this by default, as it only allows one RDP session at a time (so you can either use your account locally, or via RDP) - Concurrent Remote Desktop Sessions in Windows XP SP2 explains how to get around this, but you would be just as well using VNC (TightVNC for example)

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Could use Microsoft SharedView - I believe it's the successor to NetMeeting for Vista and up: http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=94

or Windows Meeting Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%5FMeeting%5FSpace

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There are "network projectors" these days that actually connect to your machine by RDP to display content. since RDP uses OS-level communication (to actually send rendering commands to the client rather than screen images) it's pretty fast for general use. Windows Vista and newer have integrated support for this (check out Connect to Network Projector in the start menu). You'll have to have a projector that supports this, though, and it's not a common feature yet.

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If you can use terminal services or want to try a trial account of gotomypc.com, you would able to bring the tablet's monitor up to view on the laptop that is connected to the projector. Gotomypc.com is how we do all of our presentations at work, with basic images on PCs in the conference room, and we view the presentation and present on our own PC through the connection.

Edit: Just saw the stylus part.

Okay option B. Use Office Communicator. Open a sharing session with the laptop so that it can view your desk top (Live Meeting works good as well!), and control the tablet per normal.

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Wifi Projectors are great, so long as you're not working with video. The projector broadcasts it's own Wifi network, and your tablet connects to it.

There's also usually an application you run to display the content on the projector.

Also, you can get away with a USB Video card if the display has a USB port. I would be very surprised if this tablet didn't have USB.

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First thought I could think of is to use another computer to VNC/Remote Desktop into the tablet PC. That way you can perform actions on the tablet from the other computer, which will then be hooked to the display.

Edit: Did not see the part about still needing to use stylus input and such.

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All you have to do is flip this around. The PC attached to the projector uses Remote Desktop to view the tablet's screen. You still control the tablet with the stylus and the PC simply mirrors the tablet's display onto the projector. –  Barry Brown Aug 18 '09 at 19:11
I've tried this. Logging in remotely from my laptop causes me to be locked out of the tablet's display. It appears that the displays are mutually exclusive - both can't be active at the same time, unless there is a config setting I am missing. –  Jason Aug 18 '09 at 19:19
If you use VNC instead of remote desktop, you can share the screen. –  J.T. Grimes Aug 18 '09 at 19:29
VNC might be a good idea - I'll give that a try –  Jason Aug 18 '09 at 19:38
Try use the Remote Assistance feature. That allows the desktop to be shared by the local user (the table's screen) and the remote user (the machine you have plugged into the projector). There are extra blobs of UI that you'd have to move out of view, otherwise it should work without issue. –  David Spillett Aug 19 '09 at 6:49

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