Note, this is failing even though the Mac OS keyboard viewer correctly shows these keyboard combos being pressed. Normally, in Windows the Event Viewer would show the WIN key pressed and released.Īlso, regarding Mac OS Mission Control and moving back and forth between "Spaces" (pages), CTRL-Left Arrow and CTRL-Right Arrow when pressed on the server do not correctly cause the Mac OS client to switch between spaces. But the event viewer in the Windows 7 VM does not show this regardless of the state of "Optimize for Games". Something to note, with Synergy V1.8.5, the Win key correctly brings up the Windows 7 start menu. Hence even with Optimize for games enabled, I get CTRL followed by S, not CTRL-S, for example. The modifier key is pressed and released, and then the S key is pressed and released. But, when I try to do a combo like CTRL-S or SHIFT-S, it does what happened before. When I release the key, the event viewer shows the key has been released. now, my keyboard event viewer in the Windows VM shows that CTRL is pressed. In Parallels, I enabled "Keyboard: Optimize for games" (go to the Parallels configuration dialog for your VM -> Hardware tab -> Mouse & Keyboard -> and for the Keyboard setting, set to "Optimize for games"). This was repeatable with all various combinations of CTRL, SHIFT, WIN, or ALT and other keys - i.e. It should have seen CTRL down, S down, S up, CTRL up as that is the order I pressed the keys. Hence Windows is actually seeing CTRL followed by S, not CTRL-S simultaneously. This means that the CTRL key is being pressed and released before the S key is being pressed. But when I press the S key, I see CTRL key down, CTRL key up, followed by S key down, S key up. CTRL-S), when I press CTRL, nothing happens in Windows. CTRL, SHIFT, WIN, or ALT keys), they show up on the Mac OS Keyboard Viewer, but do not show up in the Windows VM Event Tester program. In Windows under Parallels, though, I got different results depending on the version of Synergy. In all cases, any key I press on the Win10 Server machine correctly showed up on the Mac OS keyboard Viewer as is expected.
I tested with Synergy V1.8.5 and V1.8.8, again Windows 10 as the Synergy server, Mac OS 10.12.6 as the client, running Parallels V13.2.0 with a Windows 7 VM (all latest versions of software at time of writing this). This brings up a keyboard that shows what keys are currently being pressed in Mac OS. Then from the keyboard/emoji icon in the menu bar, select "Show Keyboard Viewer". To enable it, go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> and check "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar". I also displayed the Mac OS Keyboard Viewer. Basically, it shows what keys have been pressed, in what order, and for how long. The program I used is part of a Thrustmaster product called TARGET (the TARGET Event Tester program), but there are several such programs available. I used a keyboard event tester program in Windows to show me exactly what Windows is receiving in Parallels. Unfortunately, this problem makes Synergy completely useless to me.Īfter some more investigation, I found the following on this issue. Under Synergy v1.8.5, this does not work as well.
For example, I run Parallels full screen and use CTRL-Left Arrow and CTRL-Right Arrow (Mac OS standard swap screen keys) to move back and forth between Parallels (Windows) and Mac OS. I downgraded to v1.8.5 as suggested above and it still does not work.
I'm running Windows 10 as my server, Mac OSX 10.12 for my client. Synergy V1.8.8 did not work for me (CTRL/SHIFT/WIN/ALT keys not working in Parallels through Synergy). At least, this is not the first time I have had to deal with it, but it has probably happened for different reasons. This has been an issue that has come and gone off and on over the years I believe. Some people have reported similar issues using other remote access programs like RDP.