Windows 7: KVM in a Multimonitor Setup

I was using two monitors with two computers.  After reflecting on multiple monitor possibilities, I installed an ASUS EN210 video card in each computer.  This allowed me to connect dual displays.  I decided that monitor A would be available to both computers, and monitor B would be available only to computer B.  To make this happen, I connected monitor A to a keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switch.  So computer A was visible only on monitor A, whereas computer B was visible across the two monitors (assuming that's where I had the KVM set).

Problem:  every time I switched back to computer B on the KVM, monitor A would go blank.  This was not a problem when I was using the KVM only to switch the mouse and keyboard, leaving each monitor dedicated to one computer.  It arose only in the dual-monitor setup.  It seemed that the computer was not remembering the dual-monitor settings for monitor A on computer B.  Each time, I had to go back into Control Panel > Display > Change Display Settings > Detect.  (This KVM problem also seemed responsible for screwing up Adobe Acrobat 9. It was no longer remembering my toolbar settings the way I had previously set them. This seemed to be fixed by going into Acrobat's Help > Repair Acrobat installation.)

A search led to the suggestion that the problem I was having with monitor A was with the KVM:

It is a problem found with those KVM switches which did not pass the console display's EDID and DDC information to all the systems connected to the KVM switch. ...
Windows 7 checks display and display card constantly different from what XP and other operating systems did.
To solve this issue, just replace the KVM switch with those KVM switches supporting FULL TIME Active DDC function.
Please check ConnectPRO new UR or PR serial KVM switches which support Active DDC function to all the ports.

That post pointed me toward a Microsoft webpage with more technical information.  I did another search and saw references to ConnectPRO there too.  A different search suggested that lots of users were running into this problem.  Newegg's Power Search didn't offer an operating system selection, and they didn't seem to carry ConnectPRO KVMs.  A Google Shopping search led to two ConnectPRO KVMs, each costing at least $130.  I ran across a workaround suggestion to hit Win-D before and after switching with the KVM, but apparently that worked only with XBOXes, or anyway it didn't work for me.  There was another workaround, too technical for my blood.  Another thread prompted me to check for the most current driver for my ASUS EN210 graphics card.  As I recalled, the usual advice was to look for the latest drivers on the chipset manufacturer's webpage, so after consulting the details on the EN210, I went to the NVIDIA website and searched for GeForce 210 drivers.  I went with the most recent WHQL-certified driver.  After reboot, I saw that this did not solve the problem.  Note:  the machine had all current Windows updates at this point.

It seemed I had a choice.  I could go back to using one monitor per computer, or I could look for a hardware multimonitor solution.  Going back would mean waiting for Microsoft to fix this problem with Win7.  There was no guarantee that that would ever happen.  Basically, if I wanted multimonitor support for KVM-type functionality for two computers running Win7 (as distinct from one Win7 and one WinXP), it seemed I would either have to buy an expensive KVM or maybe come up with some other kind of funky plugging and switching.  For instance, I wondered whether I could make a go of it with two keyboards, two mice, and a switch just to flip monitor A from one computer to the other.  But this wouldn't circumvent the problem that Windows 7 was constantly polling the monitor, and that was the only thing that counted.  I found a device called the Geffen DVI Detective, which for $80 would remember the EDID and therefore defeat the problem (but only for monitors using DVI connectors).

Then I saw that Amazon carried a bunch of ConnectPRO KVMs, and some were far less expensive.  They did not carry the PR-12, which was the one PS/2 (as distinct from USB) KVM that ConnectPRO offered for my humble purposes:  two computers, one keyboard, one monitor, one mouse.  USB did not work reliably for both keyboard and mouse when Win7 was not running -- when, for instance, I was booting from a CD, or was adjusting the BIOS settings before the operating system booted.  But then I remembered that my new motherboards had only one PS/2 port, and the PR-12 would definitely require two (one each for keyboard and mouse).  I did have the option of using USB mice, one dedicated to each computer, and in fact had been doing that for a while, partly for the reason of pre-boot capability just mentioned and partly to reduce the strain on either wrist.  Another option was to use an adapter or some other gizmo to give me a second PS/2 port.

From ConnectPRO's product comparison page, it seemed there were several options to consider.  One was the choice between VGA and DVI.  DVI provided superior video, but VGA (using D-Sub connectors) was functioning well for me at the moment.  (DVI achieved using DVI-VGA adapters had, in my impression, the same risk of video problems as plain old VGA.)  It seemed that a couple of inexpensive video cards had eliminated problems of ghosting that I was getting when I had the monitors connected directly to the motherboards.  There was also the choice of two- or four-computer KVMs.  I needed only two.  Switching via hotkey was preferable to having to reach up and punch a button on the KVM in order to switch between computers.  All of the relevant ConnectPRO KVMs had All-time Full DDC, which was evidently the core need behind this KVM search.  ConnectPRO's Pro line of KVMs apparently did not have the Dynamic Device Mapping (DDM) technology that would remember attached USB peripherals (e.g., speakers, mice) and would thus eliminate lag time required for the switched computer to re-detect the devices.  It was confusing, shopping among these devices on Amazon, because there were various "kit" options that were described as "new" and yet did not appear on ConnectPRO's website, and also because now it started to look like some of these products did not have Full DDC and/or DDM.  What I came up with was a choice, for me, between the UR-12 PRO, with VGA and DDC but not DDM and no hotkey option ($102 with shipping from ConnectPRO through Amazon); the UR-12 PLUS, with VGA, DDC, DDM, and a hotkey option ($176); and the UD-12 PLUS, which was the same as the UR-12 PLUS but with DVI (and therefore with VGA as an option, via adapter) ($191 from a couple of sellers).

Since I was having no video issues at the moment, and might not have any again for some time, I decided to go with VGA rather than DVI, all other things being equal.  If I did get video problems, I could sell one KVM and upgrade to another later.  So then it was a question of whether I was willing to pay an extra $74 for DDM and a hotkey option.  DDM was nice -- I had noticed the lag in responsiveness at some point, hard to recall at the moment but apparently when I had upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 -- but that was not really bothering me much at present.  Those delays, and the hotkey, were especially important when I was doing a lot of switching between computers, which happened primarily when I was testing or tinkering with hardware or software on one machine and logging the developments on the other.  I was not presently doing much of that, and didn't plan to be doing much of it anytime soon.  It occurred to me that, if the DDM lags did bother me at such times, I could always dedicate one mouse, one monitor, and one keyboard to each computer at those times.  I could arrange that on my desk, and then the only lag would be the time needed to reorient my hands on the other keyboard.  Indeed, for purposes of working with the BIOS and such, I could simply keep a PS/2 keyboard always plugged in and standing off to the side of each computer, in addition to the USB keyboard connected to the KVM.  (PS/2 was not hot-swappable; it would be necessary to reboot to have the keyboard be recognized if it were not plugged in at time of bootup.)  Looking at the choice again, I reconsidered that the price difference between the UR-12 PLUS and the UD-12-PLUS was only $15.  From that perspective, I would choose the latter over the former, so as to wrap up the best product at not much additional cost; and in that case, the price difference between the solution with or without DDM, hotkey, and DVI was substantial:  the UD was almost twice the price of the UR.

As long as I was sure I did want to use dual monitors on computer B, sometimes swapping monitor A between computers A and B, I would need Full DDC, and it seemed the choice was then to spend $102 on a ConnectPRO UR-12 PRO KVM.  If I hadn't gotten the video cards for only $18 each, the decision to add dual monitor capability (with KVM and video cards) would then have cost me more than $150.  It was worth it -- dual monitor capability added a lot to a workspace -- but it was turning into more hassle and expense than it should have been.  I belatedly realized that perhaps I should have looked for a motherboard with dual monitor capability and with enough video memory so that the computer would not struggle to switch between windows on the same monitor, as computer A had been doing before I added the video card.  Desk space permitting, that kind of expense also raised the question of perhaps having three dedicated monitors -- one for computer A and two for computer B, and recabling one of the latter to computer A if a multimonitor need arose there -- thereby reducing the KVM need to a simple $20-30 device that would swap keyboards and mice, assuming those were not likewise dedicated to single machines.  The temptation to just get a third monitor and forget about the Full DDC KVM would be even stronger if I were looking at the nearly $200 price tag for a ConnectPRO UD-12 PLUS KVM.  But even without that, as I considered the time I had devoted to screwing around with KVMs, on this and on previous occasions, I did think that possibly the best approach would be to go with the third monitor, wait for someone to compete with ConnectPRO and/or for Microsoft to get its act together -- to buy a third monitor as an interim solution, in other words, and to sell it when and if a superior KVM alternative emerged.

Windows 7: Multiple Monitors, Multiple Computers: Possibilities

I planned to be using Windows 7 on two computers.  At the start, I had two monitors, each dedicated to its own computer.  I wondered if I could set up the system so that I could use both monitors for computer A, and could also use both monitors for computer B.  I also wondered if I could use monitor A to see what was happening on both computers A and B at the same instant.

My first search led to ads for KVM switches, but that wasn't what I wanted.  I did look into KVM switches at Newegg, just in case someone had invented a switch that would do everything.  But then realized I wasn't going to read through all those product descriptions to see if any of them had the possibilities I wanted.  A different search got closer to what I wanted.  Actually, it went well beyond it.  There were possibilities I hadn't even imagined.

One possibility was that of Synergy, which had originally been Synergy and then became Synergy-Plus and was now back to being Synergy.  It looked like the Synergy concept ws that I could have two or more computers, each having its own monitor, and I could have just one keyboard and one mouse, and would move among these computers simply by moving the mouse to the left or right, until it left one monitor and then appeared on the next.  No KVM switch; just move the mouse to switch computers.  The connection was by ethernet -- just get all computers on the same network.  They said you could also copy and paste between the computers.  But apparently Synergy wasn't entirely stable yet; that was their stated goal for 2012. For that reason, I decided I would prefer a KVM for now, if necessary.  Presumably a problem with the network would render all computers other than the server (i.e., the one to which the keyboard and mouse were connected) unavailable.  Bruce Tyson pointed out that there would also be a problem if the user wanted to access the BIOS of a slave or client computer during bootup.  It seemed like it might be a good idea to have a spare keyboard and mouse handy.  Another possibility:  Input Director.  This Windows-specific freeware application seemed to have the same concept as Synergy.  These sorts of programs seemed to have the same idea as a KVM switch that would allow one keyboard (e.g., that on a laptop) to take control of another computer even if it did have its own keyboard and mouse.

Bruce Tyson also pointed me toward web-based sharing services, Virtual Network Computing (VNC), and remote desktop software.  These apparently all were, or could be, variations of "headless" computing, where the keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) are all connected to just one computer, which is then linked to others whose contents may display on that monitor.  He also noted that some monitors have dual inputs, which could be plugged into separate computers, but that the user would have to switch between them using buttons on the monitor.  That would prevent simultaneous viewing of two computers and would also be klunky in daily use.

It seemed that GoToMyPC.com was one of the leading web-based services.  But when I looked into it, these appeared to be simply ways of accessing the computer remotely.  At $10/month or more, it was pricey.  LogMeIn and others seemed to offer good free alternatives.  I decided I didn't want a web-based service, even if it did exactly what I wanted, because it would be relatively slow and it would be vulnerable to anything that might go wrong with the modem, the network connection, etc.

According to Wikipedia, VNC was both platform-independent and remote-capable, and some versions were "optimised for Microsoft Windows."  A list of versions indicated that UltraVNC (free) was the most advanced mainstream version and was the basis for several others.  Current alternatives for connecting a few Windows PCs included EchoVNC (free), RealVNC (free+), SmartCode VNC Manager ($129+), SupportAnyPC ($149), TeamViewer (free), and TightVNC (free).  Among these, a RealVNC feature comparison page indicated that its free version was not compatible with Windows 7.  Wikipedia pages for the free versions indicated that RealVNC was similar to UltraVNC, but the latter had more features; EchoVNC differed from UltraVNC in being more firewall-friendly; Teamviewer was mostly for remote control of computers; and TightVNC likewise had spun off a firewall-friendly variant, RemoteVNC ($25 per computer), among others.  A Wikipedia comparison page, only in it formative stages at this point, named Skype, TigerVNC, and xpra as other free Windows-compatible remote desktop programs.  The Wikipedia pages just linked for those additions indicated that TigerVNC was a fork of RealVNC; that Skype was (of course) primarily for VoIP; and that xpra (currently a beta product) used an approach that differed from that of VNC; but it later looked like xpra was not for Windows.  For my purposes, the survivors of this discussion were EchoVNC, TigerVNC, TightVNC, and UltraVNC.

I looked at a Wikipedia page showing a comparison of Java remote desktop projects. I was not sure what this was about. The project that seemed most feature-rich at this point was WallCooler VPN, so I looked into that. This actually led to a page for Vedivi, which seemed to be in the business of giving people access to remote computers at a low monthly price.

Eventually I figured out that there are many remote desktop protocols.  VNC was one; Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) was a Windows-specific alternative.  There were others.  I eventually found a chart that, although officially for Mac, pulled together some of this.  Revisting the Synergy and Input Director webpages (above), I saw that Synergy was not a VNC project; I was not clear what type it was, and likewise for Input Director.  Supposedly Microsoft's own version of RDP was currently called Remote Desktop Services, previously Terminal Services; but when I went looking for it, I wound up in Remote Desktop Connection (RDC).  A search led me to a description that sounded like what I was looking for.  I wondered why someone would have bothered creating Input Director, with its Windows orientation, if this feature already existed in RDC.  I decided to start by trying to use RDC, to see what would happen.  That would be the subject of another post.

Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows XP Dual-Boot: GRUB2 Woes

I was installing Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu.  I encountered some error messages early in the process.  This post describes the steps I took in an attempt to resolve those problems.

First, I got this error:

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

In my search for a solution, I found a thread offering a number of suggestions.  The one that worked for me was to go into the BIOS (hit Del at startup) and make sure the SATA controller was set to ATA, not AHCI.  Mine had started out as ATA, but a notice had popped up when I was first booting it, offering to change it to the AHCI, and I had accepted.  After I fixed this, the next bootup problem was this message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

My search on that led to a page offering a number of suggestions.  I started with just rebooting.  That didn't fix it.  suggesting that I go into the BIOS and switch the order in which the BIOS would try to boot my hard drives.  This led to a new message:

error: no such device: [UUID number]

grub rescue>

This apparently happened because I had previously installed Ubuntu on that hard drive.  For this one, I took the advice to boot from the WinXP installation CD, choose R to repair an existing installation, choose the existing installation (no administrator password), and type this sequence of commands:

D:\WINDOWS> C:

C:\> CD \

C:\> FIXBOOT C:

C:\> FIXMBR

C:\> BOOTCFG /rebuild

The last one led to an offer to add D:\WINDOWS to the boot list.  I took that offer.  But then it asked "Enter Load Identifier" and "Enter OS Load Options."  I didn't know what to add, so I just hit Enter for each.  This led to a new error message:

Error: Failed to add the selected boot entry to the boot list.

I guessed that the system was seeing the Windows installation on drive D because I had reversed the boot order in the BIOS.  I did think I had cabled them correctly, with the Windows drive going to SATA0 (i.e., the first SATA connector) on the motherboard.  I looked into Load Identifier and found a Microsoft page with information on that and other parts of this situation.  It told me to type the name of my operating system:  Microsoft Windows XP Professional, though apparently anything would do.  For OS Load Options, it said, type /fastdetect.  Unfortunately, this was not satisfactory.  I got the "failed" error again.

The responses to this seemed to lean in the direction of editing the boot.ini file.  A thread on that gave me the idea of just copying my boot.ini file from another computer.  A Microsoft page gave information on editing it if I was already in WinXP, which I wasn't.  A webpage devoted to boot.ini said it should be possible to just delete the boot.ini file in order to boot the system.  The webpage also gave some sample boot.ini files.  I typed "help" at the prompt and got a list of options.  There didn't seem to be an editor in the Repair Console.  I typed "dir" to verify that boot.ini was there, and then typed "type boot.ini" to see what was in it.  It didn't look very complicated.  What's more, it looked like my XP Pro entry was already there, which could explain why my BOOTCFG command didn't work.  I pressed the up arrow to retrieve my BOOTCFG command and hit Enter to run that again, just in case.  It failed again.

I typed "exit" and shut down the computer and swapped cables so that maybe this drive would show up as C rather than D.  That merely resurrected the "no such device" GRUB error.  I decided to explore that one for a while.  A search led to some commands that I could have entered, but then I saw a suggestion that maybe I could fix it by just installing Ubuntu, which I had planned to do anyway, and let it sort itself out.  So I went ahead with that, following the Ubuntu installation approach I had worked out previously.  But at this point I only did the initial installation from the CD, and then rebooted to see what the Windows situation was now.  Sadly, I still had the "no such device" error.

I guessed that the problem was that I was using two drives.  One of them had perfectly reasonable Windows and Ubuntu installations on it.  The other had leftovers from some previous Ubuntu installation.  I didn't know for sure, but on that hunch I unplugged the second drive and rebooted.  But no, that gave me the "no such device" error either way, no matter which disk I plugged in.  I plugged in both drives, rebooted with the live CD, and ran System > Administration > GParted to take a look.  Interestingly, it showed that a partition on the second drive was marked as a boot drive, when it should not have been.  I changed that.  It didn't make a difference.

Ultimately, I plugged in a USB drive while booted with the Ubuntu live CD, copied over the data files, wiped both of the drives in the machine, and reinstalled WinXP and Ubuntu, in that order.  That solved the problem.