Control two machines with one mouse and keyboard

by | Last Updated On Aug 8, 2014 | Musings | 7 comments

This post is for those who have to juggle between two desktops/laptops kept on their work-stations. It is a real pain to switchControl two computers with one mouse and keyboard from one mouse-keyboard to another while performing tests. Here is a simple and elegant solution for it- Input Director. A free tool for personal non-commercial use. With the help of this software you can control two desktops with a single mouse-keyboard.
The broad steps are:

  1. Download and install this software on both machines you want to control.
  2. One will be called a ‘master’ –the machine that controls the other.
  3. One is called a ‘slave’ — the machine that is being controlled by master.
  4. You feed in the IP address of master in slave and slave in master. You have to make sure that both the computers are part of the same network
  5. It provides a no of configuration options which can be seen on the ‘Global Preferences’ tab. The one I liked was ability to copy-paste files -seamlessly- from one machine to another.
  6. Done!

For a pictorial, step-by-step installation process, refer this quick start guide
Please let me know through your comments below whether it helped in increasing your productivity.

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7 Comments

  1. Mani on Sep 2, 2010 at 16:21

    You can also try Synergy. It also does the same funtionality and it is pretty easy to setup and it is a completely free software.
    http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

  2. Ankur on Feb 12, 2009 at 09:48

    No. As soon as the mouse leaves control of one computer it can’t affect that computer in anyway.
    You can try it for yourself.

  3. James on Feb 12, 2009 at 03:21

    Will Q.T.P record actions on all systems being controlled by input director ?

  4. Ankur on Jan 1, 2009 at 21:40

    As I have mentioned earlier this is for those who have to juggle between two desktops/laptops kept on their work-stations.

    Remote desktop, as the name suggests is not present on your desk and is generally at some remote location.

    It works on Win 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

  5. Vishal on Jan 1, 2009 at 21:13

    What is difference between remote desktop connection and the freeware(input Director) which you suggest.

    Can u pls explain the difference what all we can do extra rather than remote desktop connection provided by microsoft.

    Also, tell me that is Input Director is platform independent, or it supports only MS .

    Hope to see ur post.

    Regard
    Vishu

  6. Vasu. on Nov 14, 2008 at 03:05

    Hi,

    You can get a 14 day trial version of QTP from HP site. The latest version is 9.5.

  7. jagdish on Oct 22, 2008 at 21:12

    I got it. Now tell me is possible to download QTP from internet? pls tell me that site which is new version.