Make It Work – The Neighborhood Computer Support Company Answers Your Tech Questions

If you have two computers — each with its own monitor — but want to use one keyboard and mouse for both of them, you’re in luck!  Synergy, a 100% free program, allows you to do exactly that.  What follows is a basic tutorial about how to get Synergy going.

Preparation: Find both computers’ network names and note them. Maybe write “Server” next to the one with the keyboard and mouse and “Client” next to the one you want to control. To find the network name, right-click on “Computer” or “My Computer” and click “Properties,” then look for “Network Name.” It is critical that these are spelled correctly. Also, you may need to open port 24800 in your firewall. If you use the Windows Firewall, you should automatically get a message on the server computer when Synergy tries to connect, be sure to click “unblock” at that time.

For the purpose of this article, the computer with the keyboard and mouse will be called “Server” and the computer we want to control will be called “Client.”

ON BOTH COMPUTERS:

Step 1. Download Synergy from the download section (under “latest release”) http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Step 2. Install Synergy on both computers.

ON THE REMOTE COMPUTER (CLIENT)

Step 3. Start up Synergy on Client, click the “Use another computer’s shared keyboard and mouse (client)” button.

Step 4. For “Other Computer’s Host Name,” Type in Server’s network name.

Step 5. Click the “Start” button on the bottom. That should be all we need to do on Client. Head back to Server.

Note: you may see a bunch of errors here because the server is not set up yet. Ignore them for now.

ON THE MAIN COMPUTER (SERVER)

Step 6. Start up Synergy on Server. This time, click “Share this computer’s mouse and keyboard (server)”

Step 7. Right of “Screens and Links,” click “Configure”

Note: This part can get confusing, we'll assume Client is to the left of Server for this article, and we want the mouse to go freely from the left side of Server to the right side of Client.

Step 8: In the Screens area, Click the + button. For “Screen Name,” type the Network Name of your Server and press OK.

Step 8: Click the same + button again and this time for “Screen Name,” type the Network Name of the Client and press OK.

Note: The Network Names of both your computers should now be listed under “Screens.”

Step 9a: In the Links section, click “New Link”

Again, assuming our computers are physically laid out this way: [client] left of [server], use the dropdowns to make it look like this (substituting [Server] and [Client] for your computers’ network names)

0-100% of the [right] of [Client] goes to 0-100% of [Server]

Step 9b. Click +

AND THEN

Step 9c. Click “New Link” again.

0-100% of the [left] of [Server] goes to 0-100% of [Client]

Step 9d. Click +

Step 10. Click OK

Step 11. Click “Start.” After a moment or two, hopefully you’ll see a message saying you’re connected.  It’s at this point that you may see a message from Windows Firewall asking you if you want to unblock port 24800.  Go ahead and click “unblock.”

Step 12. Test it out!

Step 13.  If you want Synergy to start up automatically, open Synergy on both computers and click the “Autostart” button.  There, you should see an option to start the program when Windows starts.