Input Director

Input Director is a Windows application that lets you control multiple Windows systems using the keyboard/mouse attached to one computer. It is designed for folks who have two (or more) computers next to each other and find themselves regularly switching from one system to the other. With Input Director, you can share a single keyboard/mouse across a set of systems. You switch which system receives the input either by hotkey or by moving the cursor so that it transitions from one screen to the other (in a very similar fashion to a multi-monitor setup). The idea being that you can position the monitors from two or more systems in a row and use a shared keyboard/mouse to control all of them. Input Director also supports a "shared" clipboard, in which you can copy data onto the clipboard on one system, transition across to another and paste.
Input Director requires Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4), Windows XP (Service Pack 2), Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008 or Windows 7. The systems must be networked.

---

Features

Easy to Use

• Easy to follow installation and usage guides - setup only takes a few minutes
• Tell Input Director how your monitors are positioned simply by dragging them to the correct spot on the monitor grid:
• Multi-monitor support
• Shared Clipboard - copy and paste between computers (including files!)
• Compatible with Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and Windows 7

• Transitioning control to another computer is a simple as moving your cursor off the screen on one computer for it to jump to the other
• Able to control a computer without needing to login to it first
• Supports Windows fast user switching
• Compatible with Vista User Account Control pop-ups

Manage all your computers at once

• Simultaneously lock all computers
• Synchronise the screensavers across your computers
• Synchronise shutdown of your system (or individually configure whether a computer goes to standby, hibernate or shuts down)

Security

• Encrypt network data between Input Director controlled computers using AES with a 128, 192 or 256bit key
• Lock down the Input Director configuration so that only Administrators may make changes
• Systems can limit which master systems can control them by host name, ip address or network subnet

Transition Features


• Ripples surround the cursor for a few seconds after transitioning to help the eye follow the cursor from one computer to another:
• Transitioning using the mouse can be setup to occur:
• Immediately when the cursor hits the edge of the screen
• If the screen edge is double tapped by the cursor
• If the cursor momentarily pauses at the edge of the screen
• Can be configured to limit transitions near the corners of computer monitors to avoid accidental slippage between systems
• Can also set a key (or keys) that must be held down to permit transitions between systems
• Hotkeys can be setup to switch control to a specific computer or move to the next computer to the left or right

Keyboard and Mouse Features

• Choose to use your mouse (speed, button order) preferences when directing another system
• Supports different keyboard layouts
• The keyboard LEDs (Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Num Lock) reflect the status of the computer being controlled
• Mirror input - Broadcast mouse gestures and/or keyboard input to all computers simultaneously
• Keyboard macros - record a sequence of keystrokes that can then be run by hotkey. Macros can be broadcast to all computers, played on the system being controlled, or tied to a particular computer
• Key bindings - permanently bind a key to another key on a specified system

More features...


• A semi-transparent information window that can be overlaid on any (or all) systems, pointing to the system currently being controlled.
• With the click of a check box a slave can temporarily be skipped
• On startup slave systems will inform the master system that they are available
• Slave systems inform the master system when they're about to be shutdown or rebooted and the master will automatically skip them when navigating between computers