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For my sins I'm currently splitting my working time between two computers but don't have room on my desk for 2 keyboards (and would rather just use one anyway); is there something - preferably free - I can install to share them between the two systems? It doesn't matter (much) if the keyboard and mouse are plugged into my windows laptop or the mac.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Don't know about software ones, not too sure how that would work.
But ... check FleaBay / Amazon for "KM Switch PC MAC" and you'll find there are quite a few - relatively cheap - hardware solutions. They work: I used to have a KVM (Keyboard, Video, and Mouse) switch many moons ago to share four computers with one display and set on inputs: great for file / print servers!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I'm specifically trying to avoid buying hardware, among other things because I don't want to be hammering the next computer button all day long.
A decade ago I had a PC only program that shared my input between multiple windows computers. I just moused from one to the next the same as if they were 2 monitors, the only difference was that I couldn't drag windows across. It just worked, but that was long enough ago that I don't recall the applications name; and would want something known to be good now.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Synergy perhaps? I've used it for years - was free once upon a time.
Appears now, not so free https://symless.com/synergy/pricing but not too expensive either.
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I'll echo the Synergy recommendation. I used it for years. It is a great product, relatively cheap, and well maintained and supported.
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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OriginalGriff wrote: not too sure how that would work
It works as a master-slave service-ring... However in contrasts to the hardware solution you have to have separate monitors for each computer...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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You can get KM switches which are a lot cheaper than the KVM versions, if you want separate monitors (which can help, and can be confusing, all at the same time!).
I'd certainly prefer it to the software solution, if only because it'll work even if the master computer isn't switched on, or even working.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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...and a nice reliable cable solutions cost half of the price of the supported (not free) version of the software one...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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There's a remote desktop available for the mac (to RD into the PC) from microsoft.
Get started with Remote Desktop on Mac | Microsoft Docs[^]
I've not tried it but the price is agreeable (free). I'd start there. It'll probably also let you copy files between the systems.
That way also saves on the screen too - the PC would be a [minimisable/sizeable] window on the mac.
If you run the mac multi-monitor you could dedicate one to the PC when doing tasks on both.
Signature ready for installation. Please Reboot now.
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I've used Remote Desktop this way myself. Have the one computer (the Mac) set up to use both screens. The use Remote Desktop to connect to the Windows computer and maximize that remote window on the secondary monitor. Now your Mac is the one screen and the Windows PC is the other.
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I actually use VNC to get a remote desktop on the Mac. But then, my primary desktop is Linux. On Windows, you can install one of the free VNC clients (TinyVNC/TigerVNC??)
If your primary desktop is Mac, it makes more sense to use RDP (eg using the free rdesktop client) to connect to the Windows box.
Also, it is quite feasible to run Windows in a virtual machine on your Mac - just use the the free VirtualBox software on Mac, and install a copy of Windows. I haven't run Windows natively for years - it runs really great as a Virtual Machine. The reverse, running MacOSX on a virtual machine is possible, but hard (Apple try to make it deliberately difficult). See Living la vida Hackintosh | High Performance Coder[^] for more details. I'd love it if Apple made available for purchase a copy of MacOSX for use in a Virtual Machine like Microsoft does. I'd buy it.
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Three letters: KVM (switch)
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Three words: "Software not hardware"
See my comment above for why a KVM isn't what I want.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Six words: "How is that supposed to work?"
By what means are the keystrokes and mouse events to be sent to the other computer(s)? And how do they figure out which one the messages are currently for? Both at once could be somewhat awkward. You still would need some kind of control or switch to select that.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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CodeWraith wrote: How is that supposed to work?
On each computer there is a service (the same one), where the service on the computer have the mouse/keyboard connected acts like a master... You can switch computers by moving the mouse out of the screen (left-right and according to the order you have, just like in multi-monitor environment) or using keyboard shortcuts like ALT+1/2/3...
The master will delegate the mouse/keyboard events to the 'current' services...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Between the lines I thought I read 'WIN laptop and mac'. He would need these services on both.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Just right... There are solutions for that...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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YouTube[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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The same way mousing from one monitor to the next works.
0) Install the software on both computers.
1) Set your config so that Computer 1 is to the left of computer 2.
2) Then when your mouse cursor reaches the rightmost edge of computer 1's screen the software on comp1 starts intercepting and sending mouse and keyboard data to computer 2 which sends keyboard/mouse input commands to that systems OS.
3) Then when you attempt to mouse past the leftmost edge of computer 2's screen it stops sending the input too computer 2 and allows computer 1 to handle it again.
The one I used years ago also shared the clipboard contents the same way.
Under the hood I suspect in windows it just used global input hooks to capture the user input, that's what I did when I wrote an app to send them to another system over RS232 (yay for proprietary input standards on custom hardware). I'm not sure if you can inject the input the same way or would need to write a driver to do so.
I never looked into the technical details though; it just worked.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Did he not write something like one computer being a PC and the other being a Mac?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Yes I did.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Oooops. 
Sorry, I was distracted by the boss. He rambled about something he calls work.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Ugh, how rude. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Not really. A good boss was just what I needed after some really bad ones.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Never used them, but ShareMouse and InputDirector come on top places for each search I did...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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