Belkin OmniView KVM
DON'T BUY!

I bought this KVM because my old IOGear MiniView did not work with my new wireless mouse. The mouse works with the OmniView, however the OmniView's hot-key switching does not work. The OmniView also does not "fool" Windows into thinking that the keyboard and mouse are still attached when you switch to another computer like the MiniView does. Because of that, Windows goes through its plug-and-play process just as if you pulled out the USB cables, and then plugged them back in. A support person at Belkin told me that this was "no problem", however sometimes the Windows XP system that I have attached to the KVM will crash when I switch to it. And it is always annoying do have to wait 15 seconds before your mouse and keyboard start to work when switching to a Windows computer. This problem does not exist with Macs attached to the KVM, though the hot-key switching doesn't work on the Macs either.

Though the support person picked up the call right away, he was of zero help. First, I could only understand about half of what he said due to his heavy, you guessed it, Indian accent. Eventually, I figured out that he was telling me to download two firmware-update programs. These "updates" were actually a year-and-a-half old. It's great that the OmniView's firmware is updateable, but what good are ancient updates? And the updates didn't work either. The programs both gave errors and would not run on XP or Vista. (The firmware cannot be updated via a Mac.) The support person was eager to get off the phone. Maybe they are punished when customers ask for refunds and have become adept at avoiding them due to a constant barrage of complaints.

Also, don't bother contacting Belkin via their support form on their website unless you are prepared to wait three weeks for an answer as I did.

My advice is to go with an IOGear KVM. Belkin's product design and support are half-assed. I tried the Belkin because it was cheap. My IOGear MiniView was many years old, and I am guessing that their new products work better with wireless devices.

I am also no longer using KVM's on my main system. As far as I can tell, any KVM that you use will cause something to go wrong. For example, if you have a mouse or keyboard with advanced features, they are unlikely to work with the KVM. So now, my main system is KVM free. I only use the KVM to cobble together my old computers on which I don't spend a lot of time working.

Written by Matt Trivisonno on September 24, 2007.