Mouse Without Borders keyboard connection fails

I am trying to use Mouse Without Borders on two PCs (A and B). I want to use A's mouse and keyboard to control B. I managed to make it work, but then the keyboard connection unexpectedly stopped working in the desired direction (A controls B), but continued to work in the other direction (B controls A). The mouse control continued to work in both directions.

I opened the Mouse Without Borders control panel on both machines, disconnected them and then reconnected them, and it started working properly again. However, it failed again a few minutes later in the same way as before. Since then, nothing I have done in terms of disconnecting and reconnecting the machines (trying the operations on each machine) has worked to get the keyboard sharing working again in the right direction.

I should add that keyboard sharing needs to work in the right direction so that I can sit close enough to my laptop's camera for video conferencing.

I am using Windows version 20H2.

Try3 said:

Mouse Without Borders advice by its creator, Truong Do

Thanks for the pointer. I've left a new comment there because there are already too many comments to read through.

I used to use Mouse Without Borders, but that was 11 years ago. I kept running into the same exact problem you describe, so then finally I moved to this one: https://www.inputdirector.com
I have been using Input Director for a whole decade─on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10, always without any problems.

hdmi said:

I used to use Mouse Without Borders, but that was 11 years ago. I kept running into the same exact problem you describe, so then finally I moved to this one: https://www.inputdirector.com
I have been using Input Director for a whole decade─on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10, always without any problems.

Thanks! That seems to be working for me. The little visual bloop around the mouse pointer when it moves from one computer's monitor to another's is a nice touch.

The only thing it doesn't do, which MWB does when it is working properly, is allow more than one of the connected computers' mice and keyboards to be used to control all the computers. For instance, my laptop's keyboard and my desktop computer's wireless mouse together would be the perfect combination for me right now.

EDIT: Actually, according to the FAQ, it is possible to use multiple computers as directors, but it doesn't explain how to do this. I've been trying to work it out, but I can't.

On the Client Systems menu page, you can click on the Add button to bring up the System Configuration window. From there, click on "Scan network for candidate systems". If Input Director has already been installed on the Client computer, its name should be on the list that appears. Next, you can add this Client. Do this on each one of both Director systems you want to use to control the Client.

- - - Updated - - -

On the Security menu page, under Access Control you can choose "Allow only these computers to take control" and add the computer name of each Director system to the list. Do this on the Client system.