Download of the Week: Mouse Without Borders

[Julio Franco]

Mouse Without Borders lets you control different computers seamlessly across a range of monitors sitting next to each other using the same mouse and keyboard. Think of it as software KVM on steroids, similar to programs like Synergy (open-source and multi-platform) that achieve the same result also by relying on your network connection. In this case, Mouse Without Borders is Windows-only but extends to other useful functionalities and comes in as a tiny 1.1mb download straight from Microsoft.

The program was coded by Truong Do, a developer for Microsoft Dynamics, who thought a tool of this kind would be useful for his daily work routine. If you have multiple monitors sitting on your desk hooked up to more than one PC, Mouse Without Borders will let you move your mouse between screens. The software also allows you to lock or login to all PCs at once, drag and drop files between PCs, copy and paste text, and as an added bonus, customize the Windows logo screen with a custom set of pictures or Bing's daily image. Here's a video that illustrates the concept:

The release of this freebie reminds me of the Windows Powertoys and the good old days of tinkering with Windows 95 and XP. This is not exactly the same but Mouse Without Borders is the result of a Microsoft Garage project where engineers spend free time working on side projects, and as far as I recall that's also how the unsupported but widely used and acclaimed Powertoys came into existence.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/45430-download-of-the-week-mouse-without-borders.html

 

[Guest]

Like Synergy - keyboard functionality will be necessary before this is really useful.

 

[Guest]

...Doesn't the video clearly show a keyboard, and shouldn't keyboard use be really obvious? Way to mouth off without paying attention to the details.

In any case, the extra functionality seems like a nice upgrade from Synergy, provided that you're only running Windows machines all at once. Me, I'd need support for 98, 2000, Mac OS X, and occasionally Ubuntu Linux, so I'll need to stick with Synergy.

 

[PinothyJ]

I think a little bit of wee came out :$…

 

[madboyv1]

As an avid user of Synergy, I'll have to give this a try if not at least to try the drag and drop functionality. =o

 

[captainawesome]

silly dude - Input director has been doing that for years - why'd he waste the time deving something that already exists.
It also does the syncronise locking etc and even syncs your screen saver

http://www.inputdirector.com/

 

[PinothyJ]

captainawesome said:
silly dude - Input director has been doing that for years - why'd he waste the time deving something that already exists.
It also does the syncronise locking etc and even syncs your screen saver

http://www.inputdirector.com/

Luckily for us though, Mw/oB has more features that it brings to the table …

 

[Guest]

Sounded awesome, worked great, enabling me to work more efficiently & with less hassle can only be a good thing.

The only issue I have is a minor one, it is not running on startup on the one xp system I still have for testing purposes, I given it is so new searching for help is not helping either so it is a manual start for that machine ATM.

One feature I would like to see included in the future, is the ability to place second row systems under a particular top row system, at the moment I have to effectively "go the long way" through the screen on my left, to get to the small screen directly under my main/centre screen.