How-To Geek
Input Director Controls Multiple Windows Machines with One Keyboard and Mouse
The problem is having two or more PC’s and having to go back and forth between workstation. Input Director solves the problem by allowing you to control multiple Windows systems with only one keyboard and mouse on the Master PC.
Using Input Director
We will look at setting up Input Director on a couple computers on a home network. To start out install it on each Windows machine you want to control through Input Director.
First after installing set up the Master system, under the main tab click on “Enable as Master”. Keyboard Ninja’s … notice the customizable Hotkeys you can set up as well.
Arrange the monitors how you like on the Master system, where here the Master has two monitors. Then click on Add under Slave Systems to add the other machines.
Add the other machines in Slave Configuration by entering in the hostname or IP address of the ones you want to control. Here you can set up a hotkey, amount of monitors on the slave machine, and security.
Go back to the Master Configuration tab and you will see the Slave system and again here you can drag the monitors around so there is a nice continuity.
In Global Preferences you can decide how each computer will behave. Run input director on startup for each of the machines and enable them as either Master or Slave on start. This way you will not have to go back and reconfigure them after a reboot.
When you transition between screens ripples are shown around the pointer to help keep track of the screen you’re on.
This utility is free, easy to use, and works like a charm on Windows systems. If you have multiple Windows computers and want an easy way to control them all with one keyboard then definitely check out Input Director. If you’re running a mixed OS network environment you might want to check out Synergy.
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Comments (7)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 06/10/09
Couldn’t the same be done with Remote Desktop without any add on programs?
stephen:
No, it wouldn’t be quite the same. If I had my laptop next to my desktop, by using this program, I could use my desktop’s keyboard and mouse to control my laptop without losing one of my desktop’s two monitors by using Remote Desktop.
I could just move my mouse to my laptop as if it were a third monitor (though of course, I couldn’t drag windows and files across because they’re still two separate computers) in a fairly seamless way instead of a dedicated Remote Desktop window that would basically mirror what I’m already seeing on my laptop monitor.
OK, I hate to be the one to bring it up, but I’ve been seeing it over and over again in How-To Geek articles over the past few weeks. And, let me first say that, in general, the grammar in your articles is excellent. However, the plural of “Ninja” is “Ninjas”. Could you please remove that unnecessary apostrophe from future articles? Thanks!
Todd Corson
As far as the plural of Ninja there is
No distinction between the singular and plural in Japanese
if you think this is a cool idea, try Synergy http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ it will blow you away.
Thanks a lot for this post. Might use it in my friends Cyber Cafe
For anybody going to use Synergy make sure you utilize Syngery-Plus ver 1.33 etc.. The synergy link above is official but older version.. Newer code avail here… http://code.google.com/p/synergy-plus/