KVM switch + Windows 7 creates monitor switching nightmare

I read Driven2040's response above about copy protection and responded to it a couple of days ago.

Why have both comments vanished and Driven240's comment reappeared?

Could be because you are not looking at the thread in which you commented.  :-)

My problem takes everyone's KVM problems and makes them worse. I currently have a workstation running Windows 7 64-bit and a Windows XP Professional 32-bit laptop connected to a Belkin SOHO VGA 4-port KVM. I get the same problems as described above with my workstation reverting back to 640X480(emulated resolution on the Belkin switch) on returning to it from the laptop. This is just more annoying than anything else is it resizes everything open at the time. My unique problem occurs when another user or myself from another location is using UltraVNC to connect to the workstation. This user then can only use the 640X480 default resolution with no options to change it. So following Microsoft's suggestion of updating my KVM switch would be of no use when I am not in the office and the monitors are powered off and I am trying to connect using UltraVNC. This currently the first workstation we have installed windows 7 on but other workstations in our company typically are not even connected to a KVM or any other input source and are just operated using UltraVNC by multiple users. Any ideas on any work arounds for these problems?

I read Driven2040's response above about copy protection and responded to it a couple of days ago.

Why have both comments vanished and Driven240's comment reappeared?

I believe that this is all related to a poor implementation of HDMI/DVI copy protection. Windows 7 reacts and cuts off the display when it detects a change (in the serial number or identifier of the device) in the display device so that you cannot substitute a recording device for a display device to copy blue ray movies.  You can fix it by purchasing a device that goes in line between the display device and the computer that records and then parrots back the serial number or identifier back to windows when the device is no longer present.  Fine, go ahead and do that, Microsoft, and cause all this trouble because you cannot find a way to only do this when we are not using such products as Word, Excel, Outlook and other mainstream applications, and don’t have a blue ray player, and we are not playing content protected contend from any media web sites.  This will prove to be ineffective, since it is so easy to work around, and won’t stop the .0001% or the people who copy HD content.  The rest of us will suffer.  If you are going to protect “protected content” then make sure we are playing “protected content.”

Another failed protected content scheme.  It creates a legitimate market for these device “parrots” and makes the whole thing collapse as it does not stop piracy, and pisses off the other people, like me, who don’t play protected content.  So, what have I learned- I have learned how to copy protected content and I have learned I can’t use Windows 7.  You can find the device on Amazon.com and Buy.com.  You don’t have to buy the device from a large guy in a dark room in a third world country.

None of us would even have noticed this if Windows simply restored our monitors, window size, and windows placement when we turn back on our monitors or pressed that little button on the HDMI switch.  Instead, it simply goes back to the lowest common denominator, an 800 x 600 screen.

Werdbomb, thanks for the cheap workaround for my cheap KVM switch problem.

It works...and it's better than nothing, which is what Microsoft seems to think is a good enough answer.