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Stefan_cgn
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Another Bootcamp Installation without Mouse/Keyboard

Hello!

Sorry for another post on this theme. I read a lot of the posts in the community and tried to fix my problem without success.

I'm working on an iMac 2.16 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM with Leopard.

I've installed Win XP SP2 on an NTFS partition for Bootcamp. It's running without any problems.

Vmware Fusion is running in version 1.1rc1 (61385). All normal Vms are running without any problems.

When I start the Bootcamp partition in Fusion the maschine comes up without any errors.

Windows wants to be activated again but i cant use the mouse and the keyboard for input.

Deleting the bootcamp folder from ./Library/Application Support/VMWare Fusion/.. changed nothing.

What can i do ?

Thank you,

Stefan

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jim_gill
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I had been hoping that activating it while running in native mode would clear that switch. Does it not ask for activation when run natively?

Ok, I'll dig for alternatives. Another trick we can use that might enable your mouse is to add a virtual USB mouse to the VM.

1) Open Finder to <username>/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/%2Fdev%2Fdisk1/Boot Camp partition. The %2fdev%2fdisk1 part may vary if your boot camp partition is installed on another drive.

2) Right click "Boot Camp partition" and Show Package Contents.

3) Edit the file Boot Camp partition.vmx with TextEdit or another editor. Add the line

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

at the end, save the file, and close.

4) Use Fusion to start your Boot Camp partition. It should still be interrupted by the activation prompt, but in a virtual machine I just tested that had no mouse, the mouse connected after a ~60 second delay. Things were clickable at that point.

Again, my apologies for the difficulty that this has turned into. I appreciate the chance to work with you on resolving the issue.

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Stefan_cgn
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no one who can help?

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jim_gill
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We've seen reports that on some systems, it can take Windows a few minutes to notice that the mouse and keyboard have changed. Can you restart your Boot Camp partition under Fusion and let it sit for a bit? The keyboard will wake up first and you can log in by pressing the Tab/arrow keys to select your user account. As soon as you've logged on, the VMware Tools installer will kick in and install proper drivers for your mouse and keyboard; the delay will not occur after that.

The demand for reactivation is expected; Windows is seeing a large change in the underlying hardware. While you must reactivate once in the virtual machine, VMware Tools will preserve the activation records for both modes from that point on.

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Stefan_cgn
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Waiting changed nothing. The Bootcamp partition starts under Fusion and before i can login, the windows activation pops up.

Using the mouse and the keyboard for input was ignored.

Can I see somewhere, that the keyboard was succesfully "mounted", before windows comes up?

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jim_gill
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If it's been three days since the first reactivation prompt was triggered, Windows really wants to enforce the activation. When you run your Windows install under Apple's Boot Camp, I believe it will still want the activation. You can activate it there; there's no limit on the number of times Windows can be reactivated on the same hardware. Let's do that.

Once Windows is running properly on your Boot Camp partition, go back into OS X and delete the folder Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion in your user directory. The folder will be recreated when you run your Boot Camp partition under Fusion. After doing that, the file Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Helper/naos-1.0.vmwarevm/vmware.log tells us what happened when Fusion prepped your bootcamp partition to run under Fusion. Would it be possible to post that file? (naos-1.0.vmwarevm is a package; right-click and use Show Package Contents to open it).

We've been trying to figure out why this happens on some machines; it's not been reproducing in our test labs. Your log file might help us track down and fix this problem if you're willing to help us here. I've posted elsewhere a .reg script that can be applied to bring in the keyboard: http://communities.vmware.com/message/757653#757653

Stefan_cgn
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Here yout get the log you're aksing for.

The import of the reg keys changed nothing on the situation.

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jim_gill
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Thank you for the log. It doesn't immediately tell me why your machine is being so troublesome, but it does rule out some issues. I've saved the log for further analysis.

I'm thinking that the best way toclose this issue is to get VMware Tools installed -- Tools contains replacement drivers for the mouse and keyboard that are optimized for the virtual machine and transitions between VMs. The trick is, you can't log in to start Tools Install, and Tools won't install unless you're in a virtual machine.

We can get past the login issue by temporarily, we can set Windows XP for automatic logon. Microsoft's instructions for this are here: Note that if you are not on a domain, a section at the bottom of this article gives easy instructions that do not involve editing the registry. You would do this under Apple's Boot Camp. I'd reboot to make sure it worked.

Back in OS X:

1) delete the folder <user>/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion again. This will cause Fusion to set up the Boot Camp partition again, and this inserts a line that starts Tools Installation upon login. The Tools Installation is configured to run only on the next boot, so we have to have it fresh.

2) Run the Boot Camp partition under Fusion, let it preprocess, and as it starts you will log in automatically. This bypasses the mouse/keyboard issue. Tools Install will start. When it finishes, click "Restart Now" if you can, or just reset the virtula machine. At this point all of the issues should have been resolved.

Stefan_cgn
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I configured windows to login automaticaly. After that i did a test on Bootcamp with sucess.

With Fusion i got stuck at the same position. After booting windows wants to be activated. I only get the messagebox for reactivating.

Because windows wants to be reactivated, the login procedure was interupted and vmware tools installation couldn't be started.

Do you have an idea how i can suppress the reactivation for one boot sequence or how i can install the vmware tools in bootcamp?

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jim_gill
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I had been hoping that activating it while running in native mode would clear that switch. Does it not ask for activation when run natively?

Ok, I'll dig for alternatives. Another trick we can use that might enable your mouse is to add a virtual USB mouse to the VM.

1) Open Finder to <username>/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/%2Fdev%2Fdisk1/Boot Camp partition. The %2fdev%2fdisk1 part may vary if your boot camp partition is installed on another drive.

2) Right click "Boot Camp partition" and Show Package Contents.

3) Edit the file Boot Camp partition.vmx with TextEdit or another editor. Add the line

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

at the end, save the file, and close.

4) Use Fusion to start your Boot Camp partition. It should still be interrupted by the activation prompt, but in a virtual machine I just tested that had no mouse, the mouse connected after a ~60 second delay. Things were clickable at that point.

Again, my apologies for the difficulty that this has turned into. I appreciate the chance to work with you on resolving the issue.

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Stefan_cgn
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THX!

That solves my problem! I was able to activate Windows and to install the vmware tools.

After rebooting and reactivating in bootcamp windows runs without any problems under Fusion too.

Thank you for helping and spending your time!

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jim_gill
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I'm very glad. Thank you for taking the time needed to work this out.

Let's close out one remaining issue. I had you turn on "mouse.vusb.enable" to get the mouse going, but the reason we don't turn that on by default is that it doesn't work perfectly in Unity mode: a right-mouse click won't work in Unity when the mouse is going through mouse.vusb.

Please edit the Boot Camp partition.vmx one last time, and comment out the line we added. Just put a # character at the beginning of the line; that will comment it out. Now that you have tools installed, the mouse.vusb workaround is no longer needed.

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Stefan_cgn
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After removing the parameter and reinstalling the vmware pointing mouse driver, it works in Unity mode as well.

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BooCross
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Thanks for that!

That solution fixed my problem, too.

It was a bit scary editing system information, especially because I am new to the MAC system. t worked like a charm!

I take my hat off to you!

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numberonesuperg
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Strange. I too had/have the no-keyboard issue with Leopard 10.5.1.

So I followed the first instructions that I found, which was to do 'uninstall vmware fusion, reboot, reinstall'.

Which worked. At first.

I then had a VM running, and my Mac running and sleeping at night.

When I needed to return to the VM a few days later, the keyboard had stopped working.

I tried rebooting, into Boot Camp and back again, but no luck. The vm version still did not respond to the keyboard (with the default apple 'boop' sound) - but notably it also wanted re-activation which I thought I had finished doing...

So I started reading this thread. And I started to look around, but I did not change anything. Next is pretty much verbatim what I did (but its from memory, so fingers crossed)

.

-


Quit VMWare from the mac menu 'power off'

Opened

'/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/%2Fdev%2Fdisk0/Boot Camp partition'

Looked inside. Changed nothing.

Spotlighted 'vmware'

Launched the VMWare Fusion App.

Selected (not launched) my one and only 'Boot camp partition'

Selected 'settings'

Clicked through all the options.

Changed memory from 768 to 1024. Hit Apply.

Changed 'Display - Accelerate 3d graphics' to Yes (ie checked/ticked). Hit Apply.

Selected the menu 'Virtual Machine / Upgrade Virtual Machine'

Selected 'Ok' when prompted that there are no upgrades.

Looked in the VMWare preferences.

Changed nothing.

Finally hit the huge 'play' icon to start the VM.

Entered my (Mac) password when prompted.

As soon as I hit return, I clicked back into the vmware window (to try to give it keyboard focus)

As windows booted, I watched the vmware status bar. It said 'To direct input, click inside this window' so I desperately tried to click inside in order to give the keyboard to the vm process while it booted (just working on a hunch!).

As windows xp presented me with the 'pretty' full screen fast-user-switch display, I noticed XP was no longer asking to be re-activated.

Clicked my name, and by the time it had finished booting I magically had a working keyboard.

-


.

Now, it may break again, but something I did above made it work.

Remember, I did not edit any registry, and vmware-mac files, or anything outside of vmware itself.

But something triggered something to work again.

I hope this helps the VMWare guys track this down...

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numberonesuperg
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Brilliant!!!

It's stopped working again!!!!

How lucky am I to help with the debugging!!!!!!!

Maybe I'll post again AFTER my xmas shopping....

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

...okay, I give up. I can't get it working again. I've tried things like turning on/off the Mac 'System Setting / Keyboard & Mouse / Keyboard Shortcuts / Full keyboard access' to see if that made any difference. Nope.

I tried using 'vmware / cmd-G' to direct input, but nothing. For me, the only key that worked was the cmd key. It acted like the Windows key and brought up/down the Start menu. No other key worked.

Help!!

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