Emulate a KVM switch using software

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Office, Productivity, Freeware

Emulate a KVM switch using software

by Jason Clarke Apr 7th 2006

Avi Dardik has a quick guide on how to set up a secondary PC using VNC (for multi-platform support) to act like a KVM switch and allow you to switch between active full-screen sessions on your host machine and a client machine at the tap of a hot-key. Although many may argue that using VNC software for this purpose is a pretty ugly hack, the reality is that this scenario is extremely common, and very fast on a local network.

The only thing I would add is that if I was going to set this up with strictly Windows PCs, I'd substitute Remote Desktop for VNC. Remote Desktop is simply so much faster and more efficient between Windows PCs that there's no reason not to. That is, of course, if you have XP Pro or a flavor of Windows Server for your "client" machine. XP Home won't allow you to make a Remote Desktop connection to it unprompted.

[image courtesy of Wikipedia]

Tags: kvm switch, KvmSwitch, remote desktop, RemoteDesktop, software kvm, SoftwareKvm, vnc, xp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Brian Most said 1:10PM on 4-07-2006

One good reason not to use Windows Remote Desktop is that it prevents Direct3D apps from working. Many non-game apps (even some charting, graphing and presentation applications) make casual use of Direct3D.

Bryan Doxtdator said 2:42PM on 4-07-2006

Jason, you suggest using Remote Desktop, which I do quite frequently from my laptop to my desktop via our home wireless network. Do you know how to get it out of what looks like 16-bit video mode?

Victor Agreda, Jr. said 4:07PM on 4-07-2006

Bryan, I use Remote Desktop as well (although from Mac to PC). Unfortunately, there's currently not a way to show high color (or true color, but whatever) using it. That's the final word from MS, though there may be hacks or other tools that fix that... Bummer, as I use it for 3d, and it just doesn't work for texturing or rendering...

Jason Clarke said 4:20PM on 4-07-2006

Victor - I'm not sure about that. In XP when you open the Remote Desktop Connection applet, if you click on Options then the Display tab, you can choose the color depth you want to use. On the system I'm on, I can go all the way up to 24-bit True Color.

Victor Agreda, Jr. said 4:30PM on 4-07-2006

Hm, maybe it's a PC-to-Mac thing. That would figure ;-)

Bryan Doxtdator said 4:37PM on 4-07-2006

I'm going from XP Home (laptop) to XP Pro (desktop), maybe that's the problem. I'll have to get my laptop on XP Pro soon, or possibly try VNC. Thanks for the response.

Mark Kawakami said 7:42PM on 4-07-2006

If you don't need the V part of KVM, meaning that you just want to share a Keyboard and Mouse between two computers with their own monitors, there's a possibly better solution (especially across platforms): Synergy, which emulates a KM switch in software by transmitting the keyboard and mouse actions from a master computer to a client computer. Plus it's open-source.

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

scatman said 7:23AM on 4-10-2006

Why didn't I think of this earlier?

Fouad Zahran said 8:21PM on 4-19-2006

hellooooo
thats so cute

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