KVM switch + Windows 7 creates monitor switching nightmare

Anonymous
2009-10-29T16:44:18+00:00

I have a problem with Windows 7 and my KVM switch (Iogear model# gcs1764) which is makes switching via KVM an absolute nightmare.  The iogear KVM does not use drivers nor are any available on their website.

Here's what happens:

I switch from Win 7 (2 monitors) to XP (1 monitor) via KVM.  When I switch back to Win 7 (2 monitors) sometimes Win 7 will throw my desktop to the 2nd monitor (1st monitor goes blank) and opening up display settings only shows the 2nd monitor as existing.  It's as if the 1st monitor is now unplugged which it isn't.  At this point I have to go into display settings, click Detect, and then it re-detects my 1st monitor and "extends" my desktop back out over 2 monitors.  All windows have now been thrown to my 1st monitor and i have to rearrange all my work back across 2 monitors.  This is why KVM switching in Win 7 makes my work life a living nightmare.  This isn't all of it either...

When everything gets thrown to my first monitor, it takes any windows that were maximized and resizes them to about 1/4 my screen size.  Due to compatibility issues between Win 7 and SQL Server Management Studio, Management Studio has a redraw bug that doesn't "re-size" the query window correctly.  So even though I maximize the app, when I start typing in the query window my text disappears about 1/4 the way across the whole window.  The only way to fix this is to save all my work, close the app, and then re-open the app with all my work.  So basically every time I switch computers there's about a 1/5 chance I have rinse and repeat everything I just typed above.  Fun times.

So are there any future fixes planned for this?  I have tried everything and nothing fixes this problem.  I have all the latest Nvidia drivers (my card: Nvidia GTS 250).

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-02-01T17:12:46+00:00

    Hopefully they are working on a solution and will get back when it's done.

    Three months is more than enough time for them to sort this out. If they haven't issued a fix yet, chances are they're never going to. Let's face it, this problem is NOT their priority... and as they stated, we can always buy more hardware (that costs more than their OS). LOL

    We've talked about this in the office and people can't believe Win7 is actually that messed up. The press paints such a nice portrait of it... but with examples like mine, people (at least in our office) are now starting to understand that Win7 is just another Microsoft OS with its usual series of unforeseen problems. It's become a sort of tradition at MS: Take something that worked fine in the previous OS and find a way to screw it up!

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-02-01T15:02:38+00:00

    Hopefully they are working on a solution and will get back when it's done.

    (Still no cursor when typing. Am I being punished for using firefox??)

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-02-01T13:54:15+00:00

    This thread is already among the largest one on this forum, and Microsoft is still not bothering to even try to answer it.

    No, "Don't turn your monitor off" and "Buy a new KVM" is not answers.

    (I still find it absolutely amazing they actually said "don't turn your monitor off" as a viable solution)

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-01-29T04:14:57+00:00

    all because assumptions appear to have been made with the manner in which EDID can be queried across diverse device types that don't hold up to reality in the deployed environment.

    Yes, and these assumptions just "showed up" in the final GA release; they apparently weren't in the release candidate where people could have caught them.  I thought new functionality wasn't supposed to be introduced between RC and GA, precisely because this kind of problem can creep in.

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-01-28T09:54:46+00:00

    hehe... i do take your point, however we have seen precedence before

    Take for example degrees of disabling of hardware optimisations for compatibility issues with graphics and sound accelerations that was at least present in xp.. i havent gone looking for them in win7 yet.

    This is very much the same type of problem. Peoples desktops being messed up in a wide variety of use cases (single display, multi display, kvm) all because assumptions appear to have been made with the manner in which EDID can be queried across diverse device types that don't hold up to reality in the deployed environment.

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