Dual Boxing Same Cpu HALP!!!

So i recently came back to ffxi. Before my break i was dual boxing, 2 chars. only, same pc (alt/tab back and forth) and it worked flawlessly. 1.5 yrs later, same pc, new ffxi download, new windower download. Both characters load fine, i can jump on main, and everything works well. I jump on alt, same thing. ***this is the part thats killing me** when both chars. are logged on, they sort of mimic each others actions, if i /equip warp ring.. both chars do so, if i run south on main, alt runs nort without me toggling between windows. If i manage to get them to the same spot (huge challenge) if main attacks, alt attacks, also i cant drop any items because i have no idea what my alt is going to drop. etc.. am i missing something that i need to toggle off to prevent this mimic? I messed around with UAC and even turned it off, no change. I uninstalled windower, and reinstalled, no change. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

Are your configuration settings set to allow input when the window is in the background? iirc, there is a setting for background window behavior in the default configuration GUI (FFXIConfig.exe). I would imagine that having that setting disabled should make it so that only the active window will accept input.

In one of the Windower update to fix it after an XI update the way input was grabbed when not in focus changed, basically you have to uncheck that checkbox.

For those who have multiple screens and would like to control multiple characters at once without alt+tab you would need to sandbox the instance.

Disable the game pad option on both profiles

In windower go to Edit/Game and unclick the always enable gamepad. A few months ago it was on by default in some windower update. It got me too, took me weeks to find it.