KVM switch + Windows 7 creates monitor switching nightmare

figured I would switch things up and use the 17 inch on the kvm that way I would be useing dvi on the primary and since we wouldn't be switching the primary monitors in and out windows would probably handle that better. In fact it was worse, upon switching back windows decided the 17 should become my primary display and it shut off the other monitor that had stayed plugged into it.

I am going to call corp and tell them to hold off on all upgrades accross our power user staff. I am having a harder time argueing against keeping our staff on Windows nowadays. This kind of thing is not helping my case.

Further, I have the newest vid drivers.

Is there a way to call that detect function via base command that I can put in a .bat or something?

Just having a way to get the display back without navigating the menus would be huge. I have a staff of 32 engineers I am keeping from upgrading till we have resolution so if there is a way to expedite this that would be great

(important note: when I switch to the other system I can still use the 2nd monitor on pc1, there are no problems till I switch back to pc1 with the pri display)

Switch to other pcs works fine but when i come back to pc1 with pri display it disables duel displays and moves everything to primary monitor. I can get it to work again by doing a detect.

PC1 is a laptop which I dock in multiple locations so it is nice to have it dock so clearly with my home and work systems but the mess it makes of my KVM setup at work makes that feature a bigger pain than it is worth. Can we have an option to just shut it off?

pc1: Windows 7 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M

pc2: CentOS ATI Radeon X600

pc3: Windows xp ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro

pc4: not

Primary display: Samsun Syncmaster lcd No: 24945w connect through SVGA

Secondary Display: Dell 17 in lcd 1708fpt connect through DVM

KVM: iogear 4 port miniview No: gcs1734 (switches prmary display 2nd display stays connected to window 7 pc1)

It seems I'm about a year late joining this party but my issue started with the 13 Oct 2010 patches from Microsoft.  I have:

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit edition (Installed 10 months ago -- used Win7 RC before that)

Biostar TF570SLI motherboard

4GB Ram

ASUS ENGT240 (GeForce 240GT) video card: 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 with 1 DVI 1 VGA and 1 HDMI outputs with driver v260.99

Dual ASUS VK266 monitors:

  - Left monitor connected to video card via DVI

  - Right monitor connected via VGA to Linkskey 4-port (VGA/PS2) KVM, which connects to VGA port of video card

Linkskey LKV-S04ASK 4-port VGA/PS2 KVM switch

When using my KVM to switch to another computer (regardless of whether the other computer is powered-up or not), it works fine.  But when I switch BACK to my Windows 7 system, I have been having problems since installing the 13 October updates.

Between 14 October (when I installed the patches) and 6 November (when I updated my Nvidia driver to v260.99), both monitors would blank for about 2 seconds, then the system would make the switched (right, VGA) display the primary display and the non-switched (left, DVI) monitor would lose signal and stay blank.  To restore the monitor configuration, I would have to open the Screen Resolution dialog and click the "Detect" button, at which time both monitors would display properly. but since 6 November, things are different but still wrong.

Now (after installing Nvidia driver v260.99), when I return my KVM switch position to my Windows 7 system, both monitors will blank for 2-3 seconds, then the right monitor will flash momentarily, showing open windows as they should be, then blank for another second.  At that time, both displays will appear, but ALL windows will be moved to the left display.  Furthermore, any desktop icons that were in the right display will be moved to the left display.  The only thing showing in the right display is the desktop image.  Even if there are NO icons on the right display, returning from a KVM switch will usually re-arrange a few icons on the right display.

I have been using this setup for 3 years (using Windows XP Professional and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit edition) with no problems until 14 October 2010.  I strongly suspect a change in the 13 October Windows Update, but it is possible the problem might be due to a patch no more than 3 weeks prior to that date.

I have downloaded the v258.96 (rollback) driver and plan to see if that fixes the problem.  It's nuts!  It's only been 3 weeks for me, but I feel your pain.

-James

Hi all,

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this issue but I'm seeing two destinct symptoms here:

1. User had an older video card driver installed on their machine. After an upgrade (either by updating from a pre-RTM version of Win7 to RTM or pushed via WU), they start hitting these issues. When they roll-back their driver, their problems go away. In this scenario the users appear to have a completely blank screen when they switch their KVMs back to Win7 (to the extent that it's no longer even recognized by Win7).
2. The user switches back to their Win7 machine on their KVM and the display works but the windows are no longer in the same location as they were previously.

From what I can tell, for symptom #1 the issue definately appears to be driver related. We (Microsoft) can file bugs with the video card manufacturers, but we obviously have no control as to if/when they fix the issue. I will, however, research more into this.

For symptom #2, can those experiencing this confirm that they didn't hit this issue with Vista? That will help me narrow down the issue.

Thanks,

-Richard P.