I'm running Windows 8 on a laptop and Windows Server on my desktop/workstation.  I'm using Input Director to share Mouse & Keyboard with desktop and laptop.

Why Server?  I use Hyper-V, so same HW can run multiple DEV servers through MSDN license.

OK, background info done.  This post is about Input Director.  I wasted an hour trying to figure out why Input Director wasn't working.  Windows Firewall was blocking it on the Server side.

I found this powershell commands for Windows 8 and Server 2012 that you can use to check (and disable) firewall:

Get-NetFirewallProfile | ft Name,Enabled -Auto


Remember to run Powershell elevated (as Admin) if you want to use it to change any OS settings.

This might have gotten reset when I renamed the server.  I removed it from the domain and re-added it with a different name, which might have removed the 'Domain' profile from firewall.  When it rejoined the domain the firewall profile for 'Domain' defaulted to 'Enabled: True'.  ... Maybe.