Latest News

1st September 2024

Input Director v2.3 is available for download.

New features include:

Profiles - A profile encapsulates the client systems, their configurations, and the monitor layout. Profiles are useful for many different situations, such as:

Using the same computer across different locations, each with their own set of computers
If one or more computers alternate between a varying number of connected monitors
If a monitor is shared between two computers, different profiles can be configured and assigned hotkeys to quick switch between them

Quick switch between profiles from the ID context menu, by hotkey or via the new command line tool
Auto switch between profiles when the number of monitors connected to the Director changes
A new command line tool makes it easy to query and drive Input Director directly or via a script
Command line integration can be disabled from the Security tab in the application
If using monitor numbers when editing a system's monitor layout, Input Director will display each monitor number on the monitor
A What's New window will pop-up once with information on the latest release when upgrading
Defaulted applying the Windows enhanced pointer precision setting, when directing clients, to false on new installs
Fixed bug that could block transitions in the corners of a screen
Input Director will now notify when disabling itself due to remote desktop being active and display options to re-enable or change its behaviour
Upgraded OpenSSL library to v3.3.1
Minor bug fixes

I'd like to thank all the volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v2.3, including Clifton, tongshinboan, Stormy, Steve Rumsby, Suresh, Jeff R., et. al

8th February 2024

Input Director v2.2 is now available.

New features include:

Mirror feature - send relative or absolute mouse positioning
Mirror feature - Only mirror when the cursor is on the Director's primary monitor
Mirror feature - Lock the cursor to the Director's primary monitor
Mirror mode has been upgraded to its own navigation tab
Fixed mirror bug that could cause the cursor on the client to be out of alignment by 1 pixel
New Director Preference to disable the use of the Windows enhanced pointer precision when directing a client
New advanced Director Preference can enable Input Director to listen for network configuration changes and clear cached ip addresses
Fixed bug that could cause Input Director to miscategorise a user logging out with a system shutdown event
Fixed bug when using unicode characters in hostnames
Minor bug fixes

18th June 2023

Input Director v2.1.4 is now available.

New features include:

Improvements to the shared clipboard
Fixed bug that could cause copy/paste notification errors
Fixed bug that could cause shared clipboard issues when a system using Modern Standby switches into sleep mode
Reduced lag when a system resumes from sleep
Minor bug fixes

22nd May 2023

Input Director v2.1.3 is now available.

New features include:

Hostnames now support unicode characters
Includes 64bit native version
Supports Windows Modern Standby
When in mirror mode, can optionally automatically mirror to new clients when they become available
Fixed bug that could force cursor to continue being shown when using a touch device
Fixed bug that cause a Director to think that a Client, when shutting down, was still available
No longer resetting clients skip status when switching off mirror mode
Upgraded OpenSSL library to v3.0.7
Minor bug fixes

1st July 2022

Input Director v2.1.2 is available.

New features include:

Key bindings support binding a key to multiple target keys across the Director and Client systems
Bindings can now bind mouse buttons as a source or target action
Upgraded OpenSSL library to v3.0.3
Fixed a bug that could stop transitioning to a client when it's status changes to being available
Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect transitions between non-adjacent monitors
The encryption set on the Director system will now be used as the default encryption for each client
Commercial customers can set a mandatory encryption policy
Minor bug fixes

12th December 2021

Input Director v2.1.1 is available.

New features include:

Fixed a bug that could cause Input Director to incorrectly remain active during a remote desktop session
Fixed a bug that resulted in Input Director not transitioning over a skipped client
Fixed a bug that could block transitions between systems
Minor bug fixes

1st November 2021

Input Director v2.1 is available.

New features include:

A new and flexible monitor layout system. Monitors can be positioned and resized to accurately reflect their physical locations and size differences
Shared clipboard file copy/pastes no longer require network shares, making it even easier to copy files from anywhere to anywhere
Can configure Input Director not to mouse transition to a client when a full screen application is active
If the Director system has a touch screen that is tapped whilst controlling a client system, input control is returned back to the Director
Can now configure Input Director to center the cursor on the primary screen when hotkeying to it
Can configure the jump hotkeys to transition between monitors instead of between systems
Mirroring can now be constrained to the primary screen on Client systems
Improved compatibility with Windows Remote Desktop
Fixed a bug could affect manually keying 3 digit ip address numbers into the ip address number fields
Fixed a bug that could cause the active window on a system to flicker when transitioning back and for between systems

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v2.1: Clifton, Clay Z., OldRetiredChief, Assaph Mehr, DBlivis, The Mdog Show, TurbineMan, 3MotionX, Shad0kin, revyte, Lightsaber, Simon Peel, ArthurBarthur, Pathia Tawner, Rob M, BadgerBadger, Kizan, David Loiterton, maicol07, Joshua M, WaltSchwarzkopf, Lee and jsalh

2nd October 2020

Input Director v2.0.1 is available.

New features include:

Fixed a bug that could suppress mouse clicks, particularly with Logitech mice
Fixed a bug in the shared clipboard that could cause file copy/pastes to fail for filenames that included extended unicode characters
Fixed a bug that could cause the shared clipboard to stop sharing clipboard contents

22nd August 2020

Input Director v2.0 is available.

New features include:

Input Director's user interface has been refreshed, modernised and improved
Adding a new system is easier with a new 'Scan Network' feature to find other systems on the network running Input Director
There are no longer separate Master and Slave modes. Whether a computer is controllable and/or can control another comes down to how Input Director is configured
The merging of these two modes offers an opportunity to retire the terms Master and Slave. In v2.0, systems controlling other systems are referred to as Directors and the systems being controlled are Clients
Can control the frequency that input data is sent over the network between systems (useful for those with hi-resolution mice or less than perfect WiFi connections)
Networking connectivity improvements for folks with complex network setups
Can exclude file copy/pastes from shared clipboard
Improvements to the installer to minimise reboots and automatically run a hands free upgrade if there is an existing installation of Input Director

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v2.0: Roger Howland, ch4os, Rowan Gibbs, Bid0uille, Clay Z., Steve M, Michael Brown, Clifton, Defria Manda, Michael Ateek, klugemann, Mark Johnson, mozoy, Flavio Endo, Luis Carlos Frederico and Scott C.

4th January 2020

Input Director v1.4.3 is now available.

New features include:

Windows 10 systems no longer require a mouse attached to keep the cursor visible
Upgraded OpenSSL library to v1.1.1d
Shared clipboard improvements
Minor bug fixes
Minor enhancements

20th June 2019

Input Director v1.4.2 is now available.

New features include:

Import/Export Input Director configuration as XML
Make configuration changes using the app or via a new command line tool
Fixed a bug that could cause Input Director not to resume after connecting to a slave over Remote Desktop
Have Input Director periodically check for updates and alert you when a new version is available
Use Wake-On-Lan to wake a slave from sleep when transitioning to it
Use Wake-On-Lan to wake a slave when the master system is started or resumes
Minor bug fixes
Minor enhancements

16th December 2018

Input Director v1.4.1 is now available.

New features include:

Shared clipboard reworked to improve performance and bug fixes
Improved compatibility with Windows 8/10
Performance improvements when adding/deleting slaves
Master can now control up to 32 slave computers
Fixed bug that caused the cursor intermittently not to hide properly on Windows 10
Minor bug fixes
Minor enhancements

4th August 2016

Input Director v1.4 now available.

New features include:

Supports Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10
Supports high DPI displays
Fixed bug that could cause cursor to transition early
Fixed bug that could cause cursor not to transition at the edge of the display
Alt-tab and Ctrl-alt-del functioning on Windows 8/8.1/10
Telling Input Director that a system has just one monitor when it has many will cause it to treat all monitors attached as 1 virtual monitor and not nag you about a mismatched number of monitors
Executables, installer and uninstaller are now signed with a certificate for authenticity
Upgraded Openssl library to v1.0.2e
Input Director has been slimmed down - the IDVistaService and IDClipboardHelper processes have been retired
Minor bug fixes
Minor enhancements

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v1.4: Andrew (Alf) Leahy, catly1, Rachel Owens, jwolfley, Steve Atchue, David Lockhart, toolkitza, pgale, Peter Dolkens, Massimo Trento, Chris S, Steve S, Calum W, cabbiinc, Benjamin Reynolds, Indigo, tnwilhoit, kinggreedy, DustBeats, Paul Eckhardt, NewbieNiller, Jacob Quade, Kizan and Don DeFreese

28th Sep 2012

Input Director v1.3 Beta build 101 is available.

Fixed a bug that could cause keys on the slave to remain depressed
Minor bug fixes

15th Dec 2011

Input Director v1.3 Beta build 100 is now available.

Fixed a bug that could cause the cursor on the slave not to hide properly
Fixed a bug in the shared clipboard that could cause Windows to temporarily freeze when right-clicking on the desktop

14th Nov 2011

Input Director v1.3 Beta build 98 is now available.

Input Director will re-create its notification icon if the Windows taskbar is restarted

22nd Sep 2011

Input Director v1.3 Beta build 97 is available.

Workaround that permits restarting Input Director if its desktop notification icon is lost
Change mirror mode to hide slave cursors when mirror mode ends
Several minor bug fixes

27th June 2011

Input Director v1.3 Beta build 94 is now available.

Shared Clipboard bug fixes
Improvements to reliable comms protocol
New Master Preferences option to return the cursor to the master if idle for a configurable number of minutes
Can disable reliable communications mode
Can configure a record macro to insert a small pause after each return, space and tab key

15th February 2011

Input Director v1.3 Beta is now available.

New features include:

Can auto-switch between master and slave roles allowing you to use any mouse/keyboard to control any system
Can right-click on a network shared file in Windows Explorer and choose to open it on any computer running Input Director
Can bind a keyboard key (e.g. volume key) to a specific system regardless of which system is being directed
Improved communications mode to better support unreliable Wireless networks
Horizontal scrollwheel actions are now supported
Can setup a hotkey to re-scan slaves
Can set up a single hotkey (e.g. scrolllock) as a toggle to enable/disable screen-edge transitions
Can shutdown just the slaves or the slaves and master from the right-click context-menu
Clears the 'Shared Clipboard' if the system that owns that data is shutting down
Increased the maximum monitors supported on a single system to 10
Improved keyboard layout translation support and now supports 64bit O/Ses
Fixed bug which would block transitions from a Vista/Win7 master
Fixed bug that blocked file copy/pastes from a Win7 master
Fixed bug that could cause transitions to occur 1" from the monitor edge
Various minor bug fixes and improvements

1st February 2010

Input Director v1.2.2 is now available.

New features include:

Supports flexible monitor layouts for systems with 3+ monitors attached
Improved keyboard layout translation support
Fixed security problem with Vista and Windows7 masters that could block the cursor from transitioning to slaves
The master can be set to automatically rescan slaves when resuming from standby
Mirror input mode can be limited to just keyboard or mouse only
Can setup a hotkey to fast switch between mirror and master modes
Fixed an issue with display resolution changes that could block the cursor from transitioning between systems
Fixed an issue in which a locally attached slave mouse could trigger an input transition
Fixed a number of issues that could cause keys to become 'stuck' on a system
Fixed an issue that could stop screensavers synchronising across systems
Fixed issue with held keys not recognised after playing a macro locally on the master
Now using IP addresses instead of hostnames in UNC paths for File copy/pastes
Various minor bug fixes and improvements

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v1.2.2: Chan Kershner, Frank Adler, Miro, Pascal Darre, Miroslaw Majorek, Nick Fletcher, analsaltayeb, Matt Woodruff, David Jenkins, Jim, Udo Weik, David Neal, Darren Hall, Pathia Red-Tawner, Andy Irving, Steve Planiden and Computoot

2nd June 2009

Input Director v1.2.1 is now available

New features include:

New transition option: Double-tap on the edge of a screen to transition
New transition option: The cursor must linger at the edge of a screen to transition
New transition option: No transitions occur in close proximity to the corners of a screen
Can suppress warnings about clipboard pastes, different versions of ID and slave unavailabilities
Supports using the master's keyboard layout when controlling a slave
Option to limit changes to Input Director's configuration to local adminstrators only
Automatic startup of Input Director can be set for all users or just specific users
Can default all slaves to skip on startup to avoid transitions to unavailable slaves
Can copy files to the clipboard that are located on network shares mounted on the source system
Can be set to remember whether screen-edges should be enabled or disabled on startup
Installer no longer warns about installing to incompatible O/S on Windows 2008 and Windows 7
Installer now correctly adds Input Director firewall rules on Windows 2008 and Windows 7
Slaves can be upgraded "hands-free" for those systems without keyboard/mouses attached
New Re-scan slave systems option from the "ID" icon's right-click context menu
Fixed bug - Vista slaves used to occasionally incorrectly broadcast their availability on shutdown
Fixed bug - reversed mouse buttons are now honoured when using the Master's mouse preferences when directing a slave
Various minor bug fixes and improvements

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v1.2.1: Andrew Morrissey, Bjorn Eriksson, The Bushman, Casey Copeland, Cristian, Dan Cooper, Dave (greenmonkey), David Arno, Dylan Horkin, Franco Dallera, Frank Adler, Frank Gerrits, Galion, Gareth Jones, Gary Dawg, Gonzalo, Harley Pariseau, Helder Alves, Hil Hughes, Hugo Riendeau, Jeff Bruner, Jeff Siebold aka Noon Knight, Keith Williams, Malfunct, Merijn Bosma, Miroslaw Majorek, Pascal Darr�, Patrick Wadsworth, Rob Brockschmidt, Robin Nixon, Ryan Grelck, Quirken, Shawn Anderson, Shawn Bigley, Shawn Clabough, Steve Guns, Sven Buerger, Swift and William Stahlhut

10th September 2008

Input Director v1.2 is now available

New features include:

Data Encryption between slaves and the master is now available using the Advanced Encryption System (AES) cipher with a 128, 192 or 256-bit key
Screenedge transitions won't occur whilst a mouse button is depressed
Slave IP addresses can optionally be cached to minimise lag on transitions to slaves
If a slave is shutdown or restarted the master will automatically skip it
Slaves will inform their master that they're unavailable if they're put on stand by or hibernated and then inform the masters when the systems re-awake
Masters and slaves attempt to connect and confirm each others availabilities on startup
The master can now periodically scan skipped/unavailable slaves to see if they are available
Changed the method used to send data across to slaves to improve the responsiveness of the mouse
Fix a bug for Vista masters in which a powered down slave causes periodic pauses
Various minor bug fixes and improvements

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v1.2: Merijn Bosma, Douglas R Bowie, James Buzzard, Pinal Desai, Roland Gaida, Jesus Roberto Gandara, Frank Gerrits, Andre Litfin, Lefo, Liquid, Steven McKain, Park, Kenan Rahmani, Derek Reynolds, The5thPower, Bo Tronstrom, Mike Varner and Kevin Voet

28th May 2008

Input Director v1.1 is now available.

New features include:

Slaves can be vertically positioned
Improvements to reliability to minimise false 'slave is unavailable, do you want to skip?' occurrences
5th mouse button now functional on slaves
On request to shutdown by a Master, a slave can now be configured to either do nothing, go to standby, hibernate or shutdown
Synchronisation of Keyboard LEDs can be switched off
A preferred network interface can be selected for Input Director communications
Permitting Screen edge transitions can be turned off and on via configurable hotkeys on the system being directed
New hotkeys can be setup to switch to the system above and below the current
When hotkeying back and forth to a system, the cursor can optionally not be re-centered
The 'Main' tab now displays the hostname and ip address of its system. The ip address reflects the 'preferred network interface' choice
The master marking a slave as unavailable as part of its background activities can now be optionally switched off
Fixed a bug in which the cursor sometimes reappeared in the bottom-right corner on the master
Fixed a bug in the screensaver synchronisation logic in which if the master switched from screensaver to standby the slaves screensavers would deactivate
Slave preferences have been relocated to the 'Slave Configuration' tab
Various minor bug fixes and improvements

I'd like to thank the following volunteers for kindly giving their time to beta test v1.1: Blackflare, Merijn Bosma, Freilantzer, Frank Gerrits, Martin Jost, Andrew Matthews, Athena Poseidon, Derek Reynolds, Tim Rogers, Erik Sluiters and Dustin Wyatt.

23rd March 2008

Input Director v1.0.9 BETA is now available.

New features include:

A new 'background slave mode' allows the control of a slave system prior to login and across all users logged into the slave system.
Windows fast user switching can now be used on a slave under Input Director control
The Keyboard LEDs on the master keyboard reflect the status of the caps, numlock, scroll lock of the system being controlled
Improved support for multiple masters controlling a single slave
Mouse preferences (speed, acceleration) set on the Master Windows system can be applied when controlling a slave
IP Addresses entered as slave hostnames are handled purely as ip addresses and not hostnames
A handy 'Shutdown all Slaves and Master' option is available on the right-click menu on the Master system
Fixed problem in which when running Windows Remote Desktop (RDP), the keyboard input sometimes remained with the master instead of being sent to the slave
Fixed problem where the master incorrectly rejects a slave as being unauthorised
Fixed problem where transitioning to a slave fails
Numerous minor bug fixes and enhancements

14th March 2008

Douglas Bowie has kindly setup and is moderating a public google group for discussion/help/tips about Input Director. Head over here and have a look!. To kick things off I have posted information on some of the new features in the next version.

30th Jan 2008

Input Director v1.0.8.2 is now available.

New features include:

Fixed problem where a slave was not always able to communicate back to the master
Fixed problem where right-clicking on the ID icon sometimes caused the Toolbar pop-up menu to appear
Fixed Alt-Tab freezing problem on Windows XP slaves
Added menu item to the right-context menu to lock all slaves and the master

18th Jan 2008

Input Director v1.0.8 is now available.

New features include:

Input Director can control a locked slave
Input Director can control the UAC dialog box on a Vista slave
Slaves and the master can display a semi-transparent informational window that indicates which system currently has the cursor
Can simulate Ctrl-Alt-Delete on a slave system
Can synchronise locking some or all slaves with the Master
Can synchronise a slave's screensaver with the Master's
Can shutdown all (or a subset of) slaves from the Master
Hotkeys can be used to relative jump to the next left or right system
Can assign a key(s) that must be depressed for the cursor to transition between systems
Cursor can wrap-around from the far right system to the far left and vice-versa
Macros can be set to playback (broadcast) to all slaves, all systems or all systems but the one with focus
Can opt to hide the cursor on a slave when transitioning away from it
Improved support for Vista
Numerous bug fixes
Improved usability

10th Nov 2007

Input Director v1.0.7 BETA is now available.

New features include:

Mirror input mode - Mouse and keyboard input is simultaneously sent to all systems
Keyboard Macros - record a key sequence which can be played back to any system or bound to a specific system
Ability to skip slaves (great for dual-boot systems)
Visual indicator to help find the cursor on transitions between systems
Numerous bug fixes
Improved usability

4th May 2007

Input Director v1.0.6 BETA is released.