Need help with awkward home/office PC setup

Hi Giant Bombardiers,

I'm looking for people who know more than me (which is just about everyone) for a weird home/office PC setup I'm about to be in. Here's the situation:

I started working from home during the early days of the pandemic. At the time I had only one PC monitor on my home computer and used a service to log into the computer in my office when working (so I was working with what was essentially a separate program window, no different than if I had a browser window open). The company recently decided that the work from home situation is going to be permanent and will be having us bring our work PC's home so that we use them to directly connect to our network instead of through a third party.

During this time I upgraded my own PC and have been using two monitors with it. While doing so I have gotten used to having the window that I connect to the work PC on the 2nd monitor and things like music (and yes, Giant Bomb) playing on the the primary monitor. As such, I want to connect the work PC to the 2nd monitor (not sure if it matters, but I will have a separate mouse and keyboard for the work PC) and still have the main monitor for displaying the other stuff. Thing is, the monitors are not the same, and the 2nd monitor only has 1 HDMI input. I don't really like the idea of constantly plugging and unplugging the HDMI cable just so I can use both monitors on my non-work time (I don't have any more space for another monitor), but I've never had a setup like this and don't know what the behavior is going to be or how to easily manage it.

I was thinking about getting an HDMI switcher (such as this one, but other recommendations are welcome) so that when I'm working I can have the 2nd monitor set to display my work computer while my Home PC just uses the main monitor, and then when the work day is over I just press the button and the home PC goes back to using both monitors; however I'm not entirely confident these things will work that way. All the discussion I've seen about these seem to be used for much different purposes than what I'm going for. I was hoping that someone out there can confirm this will work just fine or if it would be a waste of money (or even better, if there is a relatively cheap way to do what I want but not with a switcher).

Thanks in advance for any help! The only other thing I can think of adding that might be important is that my home PC is Windows 11, but the work PC will be Windows 10 (at least, for now). Let me know if there is any other crucial info needed.

Could you still remote connect to the work computer like you've been doing? That way you don't need to change your setup.

Let me be clear: I don't know the answer to your question. But what I can do is post the wrong answer which will inspire someone that actually knows what they are talking about to chime in. At the very least I can give you some food for thought.

First off it sounds like the ideal solution to your problem would be for you to continue to be able to remote into your work computer albeit just from across you local network rather than the internet. This may or may not be possible depending on how locked down the work PC is and how agreeable your works IT dept. is. (see: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-remote-desktop-5fe128d5-8fb1-7a23-3b8a-41e636865e8c)

The second option you may want to explore is getting what's known as a KVM. It's a similar idea to the HDMI switcher you mentioned but with the added benefit of also switching over your keyboard and mouse as well. I don't know how well this will work with switching one monitor of a two monitor setup but my guess is "not seamlessly". (see: https://www.amazon.com/Selector-Computers-Keyboard-Printer-Included/dp/B092Q42VPS , https://www.amazon.com/MLEEDA-Extended-Switcher-Computers-Controller/dp/B09XWSBTBV)

Unfortunately, this sounds like a situation where experimentation is required. Due to the idiosyncrasies of the hardware involved it may turn out that one brand of KVM works with your setup when another doesn't. Depending on your situation it may be a good idea to become more comfortable with Amazon's return policy and utilize that as a backstop against just throwing money at this problem.

@cikame: Hi cikame, thanks for the response. Unfortunately that won't be an option. Apparently the reason everyone is taking their computer home has to do with security & liability reasons (which may or may not be true, I assume another factor is whatever they were spending on the service we were using).

@paulwgraham: Hi Paul, thanks for the response. Unfortunately IT has advised that we are to use only the computers they are giving us instead of using the remote desktop service so I won't be able to stick to the current setup. Thank you for the KVM idea, I had not heard of that before and that definitely might make things easier (if it works the way I'm hoping). I agree with you, I think I'm stuck with some trial-and-error moving forward.

Hey OP, I don't know if you're still uncertain about this, but I can confirm that an HDMI switcher where one monitor connects to the box, then a cable each goes from your home PC to the box, and the work PC to the box, will work as you planned.

This is the set-up I have for my PC and docked Switch. Normally my main monitor is set to PC, but when I want to play Switch docked I press the button on the HDMI switcher and my PC goes to only the secondary monitor, while the Switch displays on the main monitor. Press the button again to go back to PC input.

The monitor HDMI switcher doesn't care about peripherals, so you will effectively need a mouse and keyboard plugged in to both computers at the same time if you intend to use both congruently during the day.

What about using remote desktop from your home PC to connect to your work PC on the same local network, even in the same room? Or is remote desktop connection not available under any circumstances?