topic disable mouse capture in VMware Fusion Discussions

disable mouse capture

iawelch — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:29:12 GMT

I am running a server vm in fusion. gui-less. how do I disable vmware fusion mouse capture??

sincerely,

/iaw

Re: disable mouse capture

iawelch — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 00:09:35 GMT

in other words, I need vmware to behave sort of like a "Terminal", preferably with cut and paste. there must be solutions to this one!!! I can't be the only one with this problem. everyone who is running a gui-less vm has this problem.

Re: disable mouse capture

iawelch — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 07:37:15 GMT

could someone in the know please let me know...even if the answer is "not possible" ? I am tearing my hair out...

Re: disable mouse capture

manman13 — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 09:18:27 GMT

Hi iaw,

Thx for using Fusion.

Maybe vmrun in VMware Fuion bundle can help you. Path of vmrun is VMware Fusion->Show Packages Contents->Contents->Library->vmrun. You can run it in terminal, and get info use 'vmrun help'.

Hope helpful.

Re: disable mouse capture

iawelch — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 03:57:31 GMT

hi---thanks for the suggestions. unfortunately, vmrun just starts the virtual machine in the same mouse-capturing OSX window. that sort of makes sense. it is a virtual machine that may want to talk to many devices, not just my console terminal.

what is really needed is a fusion option that states "the mouse does not belong to you". the vmware support folks told me that arch is not supported. end of story. they do not (yet) understand how to deal with command-line non-X based clients. it's a bit surprising, given vmware's server-farm heritage.

/iaw

Re: disable mouse capture

wila — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 12:02:02 GMT

Hi,

what is really needed is a fusion option that states "the mouse does not belong to you". the vmware support folks told me that arch is not supported. end of story. they do not (yet) understand how to deal with command-line non-X based clients. it's a bit surprising, given vmware's server-farm heritage.

/iaw

Don't expect that the support folks know every feature in/out. Alternatively the way you are wording it here, they might simply not have understood what you asked for.

Anyways, you can run gui-less just fine.

Under menu VMware -> Preferences make sure that the very first option: "When closing a virtual Machine" is has the "Confirm before closing" checked.

Then when you click on the "x" on a windowed VM you get a confirmation question that asks you if you want to "run in background"/"Power Off"/"suspend"

Just select "run in background" .. and the VM runs gui-less.

Wil

Re: disable mouse capture

iawelch — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:16:19 GMT

thanks. this is not what I meant/need. I want to run my VM to experiment with boot processes. I don't have networking running in my guest, certainly not early and all the time. on the guest, I just have a command line. I need to interact with what used to be called a local console---keyboard and screen, but no mouse. (now, console seems to refer more to the console.log and is a destination device, not an I/O device.)

right now, I always have to ctrl-command to get my mouse back when I have typed into the VM and then I want to go back to another OSX window. this is annoying and unnecessary. after all, my GUI-less CLI in the vmware guest does not use the mouse.

what I need is "tell the guest there is no mouse; leave the mouse with the host"

regards,

/iaw

Re: disable mouse capture

wila — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 21:52:19 GMT

Hmm.. that kind of doesn't exist as the VM captures the focus.

The only way to have the VM let it uncapture focus is by using that key combo.

You mention you are in command line mode early boot process so can't depend on vmware tools to run in unity (which would give you what you are after)

But you can attach a VNC session to a VM. Maybe that would give you what you are after?

Menu -> Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Advanced

Put the checkbox in "Remote display over VNC" and put in a password.

Then use a VNC viewer to connect to the VM. Note that the VM does not need to have networking enabled for this to work.

Wil

Re: disable mouse capture

Ruske — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:53:05 GMT

I just came here looking for the same thing. In my case I'm running a FreeDOS command line in the VM to work with some old (but still supported) binaries, built by tools that won't run at a modern Windows command prompt. It is a nuisance to have to release the mouse from the window when the command line window has absolutely no use for it.

Re: disable mouse capture

wila — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:13:10 GMT

Hello user,

Ruske wrote:

I just came here looking for the same thing. In my case I'm running a FreeDOS command line in the VM to work with some old (but still supported) binaries, built by tools that won't run at a modern Windows command prompt. It is a nuisance to have to release the mouse from the window when the command line window has absolutely no use for it.

The smooth mouse in/out movement that you are looking for and will see in desktop OS's is normally handled by VMware Tools.

There is no VMware Tools for FreeDOS, so the VM gets the access for both mouse and keyboard until you release it via the special ungrab key press.

That your FreeDOS can't do anything with the mouse is another problem.

BTW, you can run alternative DOS emulation programs that work quite well.

You're not mentioning exactly what you are FreeDOS using for, but if it isn't for games then my recommendation would be to look at vDOS

Otherwise try using DOSbox.

Wil

Re: disable mouse capture

Ruske — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:01:44 GMT

Thanks for the response! I have an interesting job. My current task is to assure that we can still correctly produce Z80 binaries for some embedded systems, code that I and others originally wrote nearly 20 years ago. This means, in part, bringing up a build environment that the old Z80 production tools are happy with.

I may look into vDOS, though if it hasn't wandered too far from DOSBox it won't work: the assembler and C compiler kill DOSBox instantly with "Exit to error: V86 to 16-bit gate." Given time, maybe that's something I could fix myself, but the easier path was just to throw FreeDOS in a VM. A Windows 95 guest or something would probably work, too, as that is probably what I was using back then, but it seems like overkill where I just need a functional DOS environment.

The issue isn't that FreeDOS can't do anything with the mouse (there's a mouse driver there, so it probably could). The issue is that I don't *need* or *want* it to do anything with a mouse. There was a time when computers didn't even have pointing devices, ya know... just a man (or woman!) and his (or her!) teletype against the binary hordes.

This isn't a long term project, so the mouse capture isn't a big deal for me. Like the OP, I just thought maybe there was a quick checkbox somewhere to tell VMWare not to capture the mouse cursor.

No biggie.

Dave

Re: disable mouse capture

wila — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 01:10:39 GMT

Z80

I wrote an assembler and virtual machine engine -including simulating IO- for running the code straight on an IBM clone a long long time ago.

At the time I never heard about "virtual machines" but we had some Z80 kits at school and this way one could run the code without access to the kits.

The teacher wasn't impressed.

The vDOS project has wandered quite a bit of the track on DOSbox, I'd wager to say the core part has been rewritten. I looked at what the author has done. It's pretty cool.

No checkbox for what you are looking for in VMware and yes I remember the time before the mouse.

Walking on memory lane, here's a screenshot: Twitter: Awesome, bumped into sth I wrote in 1988…

--
Wil

Re: disable mouse capture

iawelch — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 23:00:39 GMT

this would be an excellent checkbox option. or at least, an excellent option in the .vmx file to set. just "think.host.has.no.mouse=TRUE".

regards,

/iaw