So a little bit of background first on my situation. I have two computers, two monitors, one mouse, one keyboard on my desk. I am running Vista Ultimate x64 on one and XP Pro x32 on the other. I have tried numerous KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) hardware switches. I used to have a PS/2 KVM which worked great but then I decided that I wanted to get a new gaming keyboard and unfortunatly they don't make them in PS/2. That cause me to look for another KVM switch that worked for USB instead of PS/2. I found a few different ones at BestBuy and Circuit City, tried them out but they never would quite work correctly. For example the most recent one I had is an IOGear KVM 2 port switch. If I plug the KVM in, then the mouse, then the keyboard it works great, until I restart my Vista machine and then the keyboard doesn't work anymore until I unplug and replugin in a special order again...which isn't the end of the world but it is quite annoying. I've contacted their support on several occasions and they won't do anything about it and don't know what they are talking about anyways. Ok, enough ranting on that subject.
I came across a reviewer on Newegg talking about a KVM switch I was looking at getting and he mentioned a virtual KVM switch (who knew they had those). Well they don't actually make a full virtual KVM but they do make a virtual KM switch (which is all I need since I have two monitors). I did my research tonight and found one called Synergy2 (
http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) and since I was skeptical and this is free it worked out great to try out. Low and behold it works like a dream! This is the kinda thing I have been looking for...for a long time now. Not only is it configurable for hot keys but you can also configure it to just move your mouse off a custom set side of the screen and it automatically transfers your keyboard and mouse to the other computer. Super smooth and super fast (it works over your network somehow) so as long as you have both computer connected to your router then it works great. You can even copy text on one computer switch to the other computer and paste that text! That's a big plus for me because I am always wanting to do that. Anyways, I have typed a short novel about this now so I'll end it here. If you have any questions just ask and I'll let you know. Rock on!
