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Issue with Dual monitor setup also using a KVM switch

G

Gilgamesh

Flightless Bird
I have two PCs each of which is setup with Dual Monitor configurations.
There is a 22" monitor I use as the primary monitor for both PCs and a KVM
switch to change between them. Each PC has its own smaller secondary
monitor.
One PC is a laptop running Vista, the other is a desktop running Windows 7
(and XP in a dual boot configuration). The Laptop and Desktop running XP
have no problems at all with the KVM switch and happily switch the primary
monitor back and forth.
Weird and inconsistent things happen when I run Windows 7 on the desktop
when I switch the primary monitor over to the laptop:
- The background image on the secondary monitor gets smaller and and any
windows that were displayed there disappears.
- Sometimes it changes into the primary monitor.
Switching the monitor back to the desktop is just as inconsistent.
- Sometimes everything reverts back to the way its supposed to be.
- Sometimes I need to go into the display settings and detect monitors
before it switches back.

The XP I'm using is SP3 32 bit
The Windows 7 I'm using is 64 bit.
The desktop video card is an Nvidia 8800GT with 512 Mb memory, I have the
latest drivers in both XP and Win7.
The KVM switch is an Aten CS-1762 which I chose for its DVI and USB
switching capability.

It "seems" that Windows 7 dynamically detects its monitors and automatically
adjusts it's displays based upon what information it gets back. Is there
anyway to turn this behaviour off so that it will stick with the settings I
want?

Swapping monitors around so that I switch the secondary monitor rather than
primary is not a viable solution as the others are too small to really be
used as a primary (Laptop is 15", other monitor is 17").

Thanks
 
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