Looking for Software Recommendations: Sharing a mouse/keyboard between PC/Mac
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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.
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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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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
have you tried synergy? I saw it free
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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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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
I've used Synergy for years to share my mouse/keyboard between Win/Mac/Linux machines.
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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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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
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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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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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
You can use TeamViewer. This is what I do. I have a MAC Mini. I also have a KVM with a button I hit. But I found I like the TeamViewer screen on my other monitor. Now, I run Dual Monitors on Windows, and a single monitor on the Mac. It freaks the kids out when you move the mouse from the MAC screen over to the PC Screen!
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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
I feel your pain. I am currently working on a Linux/Windows setup of four computers, 6 monitors. I use a combination of Stardock's Multiplicity and X-Windows to work from one keyboard/mouse/sound card. Unfortunately, Stardock doesn't support Macs. Multiplicity is like Synergy--as the mouse leaves the edge of one screen/system, it automatically switches to the next screen/system. And it does support multiple monitors on each system. Sound from outboard systems can be piped to the keyboard/mouse attached system. Cut and paste between systems works like a champ. I sometimes do things like copy an error message on one system, mouse over to another system and paste the message into Google search. That way, I can keep the entire error situation on the screen and do an exact search on another. It also supports drag-and-drop of files between systems. I don't use this feature all that much but it's nice to have it available. For Linux systems access, I bring up X-Windows on a Windows system, then use Multiplicity between Windows monitors. I highly recommend Multiplicity for anyone who has to work with multiple Windows systems. Maybe you could configure a remote access to the Mac from another Windows system running Multiplicity? It's relatively inexpensive--something like $40 to support 9 computers. Hope this helps.
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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.
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.