Making your workspace simplier with Synergy!

When your on a computer, whether it be writing a document, doing some website development work or general browsing you need to be comfortable with your workspace set-up so you achieve maximum productivity. If your someone who has multiple computers i.e. multiple PC’s or a laptop then have you ever thought of using just one set of hardware to control both machines? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use the mouse and keyboard on your PC on your laptop also? Well with a program called Synergy you can!

Synergy is a open source program that allows one machine to share it’s mouse and keyboard with other machines. This means that you can designate one machine to be server (the machine of which the mouse and keyboard will be shared) and then allow other clients to connect to the designated server so the servers mouse and keyboard can be used on client machines and control their environment. This is particularly useful if your looking for a dual screen type set-up but require different sessions to be controlled from one location. Synergy allows you to seamlessly use your mouse and keyboard over multiple displays.

What’s even better is that it works cross platform, what I mean by that is the server and client machines do not have to be running the same operating system. For example, the server machine could be running Windows, while the client machine could be running Linux.

Enough talk, where do I download it?

You can download it from the official Synergy website (here). Choose the correct package for your operating system and follow the installation instructions that are specific to the operating system you are running. Once you’ve got it installed you’ll need to map out what machine will be the server and which machine will be the client.

Getting Synergy Set-up

So for this demonstration I’ll be using two Windows Machines. My Desktop PC will be the server (Running Windows XP) and my laptop will be the client (Running Windows 7). So let’s start by setting up the server machine.

Configuring the server machine:

I’ve chosen my Desktop PC to be the server. For your server machine start by going to Start > All Programs and clicking on Synergy. When you run it you will be presented with a window similar to this:

I want to set-up the desktop PC as a server so I’ve gone ahead and checked the “Share this computer’s keyboard and mouse option”. Now it’s time to configure it, so go ahead and click the configure button. Now you’ll be presented with a window similar to this:

First of all you need to add screens so Synergy knows what screens the keyboard and mouse can be shared on. Underneath the screens list box, click the + button to add a screen.

To keep everything simple I’ve named my screens the same as their host name as they appear on my network. In this case my desktop PC is called JAMES-PC and my laptop is JAMES-LAPTOP. Once you’ve added your screens you now need to link them up so Synergy is aware of the position of the screens relative to your workspace set-up.

My workspace set-up is like this:

My laptop is on the left and my desktop PC is on the right. So I have to add links according to this positional set-up. To start adding links click the drop down box below the links list box and define the positions:

Here is my first link, it reads as to the left of JAMES-PC is JAMES-LAPTOP

To add the link to Synergy click the + button and you should find the link is saved. However you also need to create another link so the mouse and keyboard can go between each machine, otherwise by only creating one link your mouse and keyboard will not be able to switch between the two:

This link basically defines where JAMES-LAPTOP is in relative position to JAMES-PC is. Click the + button to add the second link and the white list box should display how the links have been set-up:

If any of the links read wrong then delete the link and recreate it by repeating the steps above. If everything went well then click OK. Now you can go ahead and click start on the main window to run Synergy as a server:

Connecting client machines

Now Synergy is running on the server. Now all that’s left to do is connect the client to the server machine. In this case the client is my laptop so I need to open Synergy on the client machine. Once you’ve done that you will see the same main window as you did on the server but rather than sharing the keyboard and mouse you will want simply to check the “Use another computer’s shared keyboard and mouse (client)” option:

In the host name box I’ve put the IP address of my desktop PC. I’d recommend you also use IP addresses rather than host names as I’ve found that sometimes you don’t also get a successful connection even though both machines are networked correctly. I’d also recommend if you do use the IP method you assign your server machine a static IP so DHCP will not periodically change the IP address. I set my server machine with a static IP of 192.168.2.2, which is it’s local IP on my network.

You’ll know if Synergy is working if you can move your mouse over to the next screen as if you were dual screening, you can also check the Synergy taskbar icon to see if it has a lighting bolt icon (Indicating that it’s connected to a client machine).

Synergy is really effective for a set-up like mine, my laptop is always sitting on my desk next to me so it’s so convenient to be able to use my PC mouse and keyboard to control it and what’s even better the clipboard of server and client machine can go between each other, meaning if I copied an image to the clipboard on the server machine, I could then paste it on the client machine and vice versa. Trust me this little feature is golden, particularly with me a couple of days ago when I was installing software on both machines which had long serial codes!

Starting Synergy on login:

Hopefully you’ve got Synergy set-up and working for you, but there’s one last thing you can do to make Synergy even more efficient, getting it to start up as soon as you log in, this is very easily done as the application can automatically add an entry into your start up programs list by a simple click of a button. To make it this happen open you main Synergy window and click on AutoStart:

Click the install button on the “When you login” option. Once Synergy has installed itself as a start-up program the next time you reboot you will find your machine will start Synergy automatically. You should also do the same for the client machine so both will be connected on log in of each machine so you can immediately start using your mouse over multiple clients without having to click a button

Starting Synergy with the computer:

Note for Windows Vista/7 Clients: The start up with computer option does not work on Synergy version 1.3.6 with Vista/7 clients, this is because of the security changes Microsoft made since Windows XP. However the Synergy 1.4.1 BETA will enable you to get the start up option to work as it will install Synergy as a service.

For a setup like mine you can keep Synergy 1.3.6 on the server machine and then go ahead and install Synergy 1.4.1 BETA on the client machine. To get the BETA click here and scroll down to BETA Versions section and grab the BETA from there. Install the BETA on the client machine, open Synergy and go to Edit > Services and click Install on the Client section. Then as normal point your client to the location of your server through either its IP or Hostname. On your next reboot you should find you can use your shared mouse on the log on screen of the client. You can then also change your server to start up Syngery with the computer also so you don’t even have to log in to start Synergy, it will already be running at the log on window!