Quick and Dirty KVM WITHOUT Cables

I think it’s safe to say that most of my readers (6 of them) have a portable work computer.  And I think it’s also safe to say that from time to time, most of them grudgingly take this portable computer at home to continue their work to meet their next-to-impossible deadlines.  Of course, one of the annoying things about working with the portable is the lack of screen real estate. Most of us have desktop computers with larger screens, and wouldn’t it be really cool if we can use your desktop’s screen with the laptop computer as a secondary display without resorting to dealing with KVMs and extra cables?  And probably even use the desktop’s keyboard and mouse and not deal with the laptop’s not-so-comfortable keyboard and mouspad?  If this is the kind of setup you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right blog…I will show you how to do this.

Note that this would only apply to Windows machines.  Although I am a self-professed Mac whore, I still use Windows machines for my day job. 

I use MaxiVista (Windows only) to extend the display of my laptop computer to another computer (which, in this case, is a desktop computer).  And then I use Synergy to share the desktop’s mouse and keyboard to the laptop.  Let’s say that the laptop (which I’ll refer to as FrogNinja) is on the left of the desktop (which I’ll name Polgas).

• Purchase a license or grab a demo version of MaxiVista and install it on FrogNinja. 
• Run MaxiVista on FrogNinja and you should be able to see a little icon on the system tray.  Right-click on the MaxiVista icon and select “Create MaxiVista viewer.”  This will create a MaxiVista viewer client executable.  Copy this client program on Polgas’s local drive.
• Install Synergy on both machines.  Configure Synergy on Polgas and select “Share this computer’s keyboard and mouse (server) and set the following configuration (click “Configure…”)

 

• On Polgas, determine its IP address by running ipconfig on the command line. 
• Start Synergy on Polgas.
• On FrogNinja, run Synergy and select “Use another computer’s shared keyboard and mouse (client)” and input Polgas’ IP address on the “Pther Computer’s Host Name” text box.
• Start Synergy on FrogNinja.  At this point you should be able to use Polgas’s mouse and keyboard to control FrogNinja.  Getting there…
• Now on Polgas, start the MaxiVista client that you copied earlier.
• Go back to FrogNinja, right click on the MaxiVista system tray, and select “Enable secondary display.”  Select “Unblock” if the Windows Firewall warning comes up.  By default it should automatically extend the FrogNinja’s display on Polgas without too much fuss. 
• Fine tune the position of the extended display by right-clicking on FrogNinja’s desktop and select “Settings…”

And there you have it!  You are now using your desktop’s mouse and keyboard to control your laptop, and use the desktop’s screen as the laptops extended display.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 6:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.