Multiple monitor presentation

[grosie]

I have got to try and do a presentation in a week's time where I have two projector screens which need to act independently of each other (i.e. slightly different presentations)

I see two ways of doing this:
- A program that allows PowerPoint to continue running on one screen of a multi monitor setup on one machine while another powerpoint is running on the other (Like Powershow does)
- Having two separate computers and sharing the mouse and keyboard.

I would like to do this for as little money as possible (i.e. I am happy to spend £3 on a crossover cable but not £60 on PowerShow)

So,

So, is there a free version of powershoww, is there a way to share the mouse and keyboard between two computers or will I just have to use two computers and control them independently?

Thanks in advance.

[sadbuttrue]

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Will allow you to share keyboard and mouse with multiple PCs.

[Vimeous]

A usb based KVM would do the trick but your budget precludes it. You just don't attach the monitor.

However:

1. The main PC needs to be a laptop. This effectively gives you three screens.
2. Network the two PC's together.
3. Set the laptop to run dual screen (extend the desktop across both screens) with normal desktop on the laptop screen and the presentation running on the projector.
4. Use remote desktop on the laptop to connect to PC2 (connected to 2nd projector).

You then have both screens run from the laptop. Powerpoint 2k3 shouldn't stop showing the presentation if it looses focus so hopefully this will solve your problem.

[grosie]

Thanks a lot - I will try that method.

If that doesn't work - I'll just revert to two separate computers.

[hibby]

There may be a solution that uses just the one computer connected to two projectors/monitors, but I don't have the setup to test it. It's possible to use RunAs to open two instances of Powerpoint on the same computer if you have two user accounts.

Create a shortcut like this one:
C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:<Computer Name or Domain>\<2nd User Name> <Path to Powerpoint>

You can then load up your first presentation as normal, put the window on one of the displays. The shortcut above then can be used to load the second presentation on the other display. It only works if Powerpoint will run the presentation on a specified display rather than just using the primary monitor - you'd have to experiment.