Few months ago I’ve written an article on how to share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without using special hardware. It can be done using Input Director (freeware), Synergy (freeware) and Multiplicity (shareware). If you’ve used either Input Director and Multiplicity before, you’ll notice that Synergy is a bit harder to set up. I can honestly tell you that I didn’t even get to test Synergy because I couldn’t get it to work. I kept on getting the error “WARNING: a client with the name “COMPUTERNAME” is already connected.”
I gave up and didn’t put any extra effort in getting Synergy to work. Today I found a very useful tool developed by James A Kinsman on Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day. It is a nice setup Wizard for Synergy. Sort of like “Synergy for Dummies”. I’ve tested the wizard and it took less than 1 minute to get my laptop and desktop sharing one single mouse and keyboard.
With Synergy, all the computers on your desktop form a single virtual screen. You use the mouse and keyboard of only one of the computers while you use all of the monitors on all of the computers. You tell synergy how many screens you have and their positions relative to one another. Synergy then detects when the mouse moves off the edge of a screen and jumps it instantly to the neighboring screen. The keyboard works normally on each screen; input goes to whichever screen has the cursor.
In this example, the user is moving the mouse from left to right. When the cursor reaches the right edge of the left screen it jumps instantly to the left edge of the right screen.
After installing Synergy, you get to choose whether to share or use a shared keyboard and mouse. I select Share this computer’s keyboard and mouse (server) and click the Configure button. With one look, I couldn’t really understand how to configure Synergy. I don’t know what is the percentage doing there, what’s left, right, top, bottom. Totally confusing…
To simplify Synergy’s configuration and get it working, just use “Xhirl Synergy Wizard“. Just follow the few simple steps below.
On the computer that is going to be used to control other machines with its keyboard and mouse
1. Download Xhirl Synergy Wizard and extract the file to where Synergy is installed. By default Synergy is installed in C:\Program Files\Synergy.
2. Run XhirlSynergyWizard.exe, make sure Primary is selected and click Next.
3. If the computer that you will be controlling is on the left, the click on the left dropdown box to select the computer name (or you can manually enter the computer name or IP address). Do the same if you have a computer on the right. Once you’re done, click Next.
4. On the next screen, you get to configure Screen Switching and Extra Synchronization options. You can leave it blank if you are unsure and click Next.
5. Here you have Advanced Connection options. Again, if you’re unsure, just click the Next button, and click Finish.
6. You will get a confirmation window saying that this computer is set up to be the primary computer… Click OK.
7. When asked if you’d like to copy the configuration file synergy.sgc to My Documents folder, click Yes.
8. The configuration is done. Click Close and Synergy is already running in background.
On the computer that will be controlled using another machine’s keyboard and mouse.
1. Download Xhirl Synergy Wizard and extract the file to where Synergy is installed. By default Synergy is installed in C:\Program Files\Synergy.
2. Run XhirlSynergyWizard.exe, select Secondary and click Next.
3. Click the dropdown box and select the primary computer name or IP address. If it is not listed, you can manually type the computer name or IP address. Cick Next.
4. Here you have Advanced Connection options. If you’re unsure, just click the Next button, and click Finish.
5. You will get a confirmation window saying that this computer is set up to be the secondary computer… Click OK.
6. When asked if you’d like to copy the configuration file synergy.sgc to My Documents folder, click Yes.
When you’ve completed all steps above, you should see that the Synergy green circle tray icon with the “lightning bolt” connected symbol.
To control another computer, simple move your mouse right to the edge of the left and right screen and you will see your mouse cursor jumps instantly to the left edge of the right screen. I showed my girlfriend how Synergy works while testing it and she was as impressed as I am.
