Sorry, should have read the post linked to above. Apparently there is a workaround to use Unity, which I am going to try.

Here's the link again for other people like me who might not read everything before they post...

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=90810

Thanks. I've contacted the Sofa Control developers to let them know how they can fix the problem.

For what it's worth, folks, if you run into software that causes this issue, you can email the developers this link that explains how to correct it. VMware Fusion is not the only software impacted by this issue, so it'll help everyone out.

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2150.html

Hi csuhdba,

Here's the steps to diagnose this problem, from earlier in the thread. Can you please try them and let us know what the result is?

===
Sounds like some application has turned on Secure Event Input, which unfortunately disables keyboard input to VMware Fusion when not in Unity mode. Can you try running the following from Terminal:

ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput

You'll see a line like:

| "IOConsoleUsers" = ({"kCGSSessionSecureInputPID"=4695, (...)

If you can then run:

ps auxww | grep 4695

where 4695 is the number you see after "kCGSSessionSecureInputPID", it'll tell you what program has enabled Secure Event Input.

If you could let us know which process has done this (and not disabled Secure Event Input when it was done), we can contact the software provider to let them know they're breaking Fusion.

Thanks for your patience!
===

We are looking at this, but my understanding is that reworking the input method is a big change, which is why it hasn't happened yet.

The problem is that the API is bad (it was changed to allow one program to lock out others indefinitely, but IIRC, back when we originally did this, it was more sane and only locked out others when that program had focus), and that other developers are using it in a bad way (keeping the lock at all times, rather than dropping it when not needed).

Looks like Microsoft Entourage also prevents keyboard input:

(running Leopard and VMware fusion 1.1 build 62573)

$ ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput
| "IOConsoleUsers" = ({"kCGSSessionSecureInputPID"=1735,"kCGSSessionLoginwindowSafeLogin"=No,"kCGSSessionAuditIDKey"=0,"kCGSessionLoginDoneKey"=Yes,"kCGSSessionSystemSafeBoot"=No,"kCGSSessionOnConsoleKey"=Yes,"kCGSSessionUserIDKey"=501,"kSCSecuritySessionID"=11685424,"kCGSSessionUserNameKey"="xxx","kCGSSessionGroupIDKey"=20,"kCGSSessionConsoleSetKey"=0,"kCGSSessionIDKey"=256,"kCGSessionLongUserNameKey"="XXX"})

$ ps -eaf | grep 1735
501 1735 116 0 1:14.65 ?? 13:41.36 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Support/LaunchCFMApp /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Entourage

I stopped Entourage and then I was able to type into my VMware window.

Last.fm on Tiger for me.