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GRJBYFLEET
Contributor
Contributor

Mouse no longer working

I have recently upgrade VMWare Workstation 12 Player to 12.5.6 Build 5528349.

I am running Windows 10, 67bit on my host machinE.  I am running Windows XP in player.

Since I upgraded my mouse does not work properly.  I can see the cursor on the screen moving etc.  When I select Help etc it works fine.  When I select any of the Icons on the screen NOTHING HAPPENS.  I cannot even select the START option to sign off properly.

Can anyone help me with this problem.

Gary

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bluefirestorm
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After clicking on the icon, is the mouse pointer/cursor still there? Or does the mouse cursor simply disappear? If it disappears, try Ctrl+Alt (to restore pointer back to host) and Ctrl+G (to put focus back to guest) combinations. You may have to go to Control Panel - Mouse - and make sure "Enable pointer shadow" is checked in the XP guest.

Have you tried reinstalling VMware Tools on the XP guest?

Go to the menu Player -> Manage -> Reinstall VMware Tools ...

and trigger the setup at the virtual CD inside the XP guest

Some useful keyboard shortcuts to go-by in XP with the Windows key since you are having mouse problems:

The Windows key (that has a Windows logo, some older keyboards has Start label on it as well) is usually located next to the left hand side ALT key.

Windows key - invokes Start menu

Windows key + E - invokes Windows Explorer

Windows key + R - invokes Run command

Windows key + F - invokes Find/Search Files/Folders

Windows key + M - minimises all windows

shift-Windows key + M - unminimises all windows

Windows key + D - minimise all windows, goes to desktop

Windows key + L - lock Windows

Not sure if this universally works across all XP versions, any other alphabet letter or number that does not have special function with Windows key combination will iterate through the icons on the desktop with that letter/number. For example, Windows key + A, will select a desktop icon that starts with A; pressing Windows key + A again, will go to the next desktop icon that starts with A. I don't know the exact order it follows, it doesn't look alphabetical nor does it follow vertical/horizontal order of the icons. You can then press enter to execute the selected icon (same as double click action) or you can press the arrow keys to navigate amongst the desktop icons.

After over 20 years since Windows 95, the contradictory design of having to click a "Start" button to stop (shut down) a computer still lives on in Windows XP/2003/2008.

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GRJBYFLEET
Contributor
Contributor

I have tried various key strokes and they do not work.  I tried re installing tools but got to the part that is was reacy to install I must select "Next" but when I click it with the mouse "nothing happens"?

Still stuck.

Gary

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bluefirestorm
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"I have tried various key strokes and they do not work."

It is not clear to me what you meant by this. So even keyboard does not work at all inside XP VM? Didn't you have to enter the XP password or is password disabled for this XP? Does the keyboard even work on the host machine? If the keyboard is not working on both host and XP VM, then the problem could be something else. So please be clear in your description.

Anyway assuming, the keyboard functionality is still working inside the XP guest, with the VMware tools reinstall, you should use keyboard to navigate through as it is obvious there is a mouse problem. You can see the Next the letter "N" has an underline, to create the click action use Alt-N. Other options may have underline in different letter and you type the appropriate Alt-<letter> to perform the click action. You can also use tab key to navigate between buttons, etc. This applies on all subsequent screens.

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GRJBYFLEET
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Contributor

For some reason my mouse is now working?  I did not do anything special for this to happen.

Thanks for your aswsistance.

Gary

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