How To: Control a PC and Mac with One Keyboard and Mouse

Posted 10/13/2008 at 10:00am | by Alex Castle

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We at Maximum PC remember a time, long ago, when having a dual-monitor setup was enough to establish some pretty serious nerd cred. These days, however, everyone and their grandma are playing World of Warcraft and checking their email at the same time on their two screens. So what’s a guy got to do to stand out from the pack? Here’s one idea: run two computers in tandem.

Synergy is a free, open source program that allows you two control two or more computers with a single keyboard and mouse. The linked computers behave as though they were simply different monitors in a traditional multi-monitor, single-computer setup. That is to say, if you drag the mouse off the left side of the right monitor, it appears on the left monitor, directing all keystrokes to that box. More impressively, Synergy synchronizes the two computers’ clipboards and even their screensavers.

The most brilliant part of Synergy? It’s a cross-platform application, meaning you can run a Windows PC, a Unix box and a Mac running OS X all at the same time, with one keyboard and one mouse. If that doesn’t impress your nerd friends, you need to get some nerdier friends.

Fortunately, getting Synergy up and running is a snap. We’ll run through the steps involved now.

Time = 15 Min

What You Need

•    Synergy
Free, synergy2.sourceforge.net/

 1. Install Synergy on Each Computer

First, go to the Synergy website (synergy2.sourceforge.net) and click on the “Latest Release” link on the sidebar. From there, download whichever binary (or source, if you want to compile yourself) is appropriate for each box you’ll be running, and install it.

Each computer you plan to connect should be on the same local network. This shouldn’t be a problem, since you’ll want to use Synergy with computers in close proximity anyway, but if you do get any funny ideas about running it over the internet, be careful; Synergy has no built-in encryption and is therefore a pretty massive security risk over an untrusted network.

2. Configure Synergy on the Server Computer

Before you can proceed, you’ll need to decide which computer you want to be the server. The only important thing about the server-client distinction is that the server is the computer which will have the mouse and keyboard connected. Once you’ve decided, we’ll configure Synergy on that computer.

On a Windows Box

Run the synergy.exe executable. A window should open. When it does, select the “Share this computer’s keyboard and mouse (server)” radial button, as shown below.

Next, click on the button labeled “Configure…” just to the right of the words “Screens & Links.” A new dialogue will pop up. At the top, under the empty list marked “Screens,” click the “+” button.  Yet another dialogue will open, labeled “Add Screen.” Here you will input the name of the first screen you want to add, the server. For simplicities sake, I highly recommend that you use your computer’s name for this, as it will streamline the process.  You can leave the “Aliases” and other fields untouched.  Repeat this process until each computer you wish to connect is present in the “Screens” list.

Next, you’ll need to establish the links between each screen. To do this, we’ll use the dropdown fields at the bottom of the “Screens & Links” window.  The three you need to change have a thin red border around them, for easy identification.  Fill out the boxes so that they describe a link between two of your screens.  For instance, if you’re running two screens side by side, you would fill out the fields so that two completed line reads:

“0 to 100% of the left of RightScreenName goes to 0 to 100% of LeftScreenName,”

where RightScreenName and LeftScreenName are the names of the appropriate screens. Click the “+” button below to confirm the link.

It’s important to note that you must establish the links both ways—just establishing a link from the right of one screen will not automatically establish the corresponding link from the left of the other.  Once you’ve established all links, the screen should look something like this:

Press ok to go back to the main menu, and click “Test.”  This will start the server without closing the configuration window.  Now, you’re ready to start the clients.