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melegar
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Black Backgrounds in Microsoft Outlook and Skype for Business

I recently upgraded both my Mac OS to 10.12.4 and Vmware Fusion to 8.5.6.  Since those upgrades I am now seeing strange background issues in Microsoft Outlook and Skype for Business (see the attached screenshot).  The background of the application will at times turn black.  I'm running windows 7 professional as my VM.  Anyone else had an issue like this and know how to resolve them? 

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RickShu
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Hi jrschoenberger,

I was able to replicate your problem on a MacBook with Broadwell GPU, it occurs on 10.12.4 only, so it seems to be an Intel Broadwell display driver issue, I will report it to Fusion development team for further analysis.

In the meanwhile, as a workaround, you can disable hardware acceleration in your Excel, Outlook...etc. Please follow the steps as below:

1) Open Options in Excel or Outlook

2) Click 'Advanced' from left panel.

3) Scroll to 'Display' section

4) Check 'Disable hardware graphics acceleration'

5) Click OK button and restart Excel or Outlook.

I hope it helps.

Regards,

-Rick

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18 Replies
NJM17
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I'm having a similar problem with Excel 2013 with Windows 7 (VMWare Fusion 8.5.6) on my Mac OS 10.12.4.  See attached screen shots for an example.  Just noticed this after doing the recent Fusion 8.5.6 update.

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Mikero
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I get this on Outlook for Mac all the time actually =\

Does it persist after you restart the app?

If not, what about when you restart the VM?

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Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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jrschoenberger
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I have this same problem, but it did not appear for me until after updating to MacOS 10.12.4 last Monday. Restarts do not help. It occasionally corrects itself, and if I hover over a ribbon, that tab itself becomes the correct color, i.e. blue in Word.

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ErocMillsie
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Same exact issue in Office 2016.

Early 2011 MacBook Pro and Early 2015 MacBook Pro Retina - OS X (Latest Release) - VMware Fusion (Latest Release)
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RickShu
VMware Employee
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Hi melegar,

Would you please inform your GPU type of your Mac host?

I was unable to replicate the black background issue on my test environment.  (Run Office 2016 in Windows 7 VM with Fusion 8.5.6 on MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Pro GPU)

Regards,

-Rick

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RickShu
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Hi jrschoenberger,

Would you please inform your GPU model or upload vmware.log of your virtual machine? Thanks.

Regards,

-Rick

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jrschoenberger
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Hi Rick,

The graphics processor is and Intel Iris 6100 in a MacBook Retina 13" Early 2015. I'm also attaching the vmware.log file.

Thanks!

Jeff

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WA74
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i have the same problems,

MS Outlook stops

MS PowerPoint stops

end then VMware stops, reboot macbook.

i can´t work anymore, the last update is ......

i have macbook early 2016, m7

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RickShu
VMware Employee
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Hi jrschoenberger,

I was able to replicate your problem on a MacBook with Broadwell GPU, it occurs on 10.12.4 only, so it seems to be an Intel Broadwell display driver issue, I will report it to Fusion development team for further analysis.

In the meanwhile, as a workaround, you can disable hardware acceleration in your Excel, Outlook...etc. Please follow the steps as below:

1) Open Options in Excel or Outlook

2) Click 'Advanced' from left panel.

3) Scroll to 'Display' section

4) Check 'Disable hardware graphics acceleration'

5) Click OK button and restart Excel or Outlook.

I hope it helps.

Regards,

-Rick

RickShu
VMware Employee
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Hi melegar,

Please try the workaround in replay#9.

Regards,

-Rick

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WA74
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thank you, this helps.

or disable "3d hardware graphics acceleration" on this VM´s

it work´s fine. when we get an update patch for this problem ?

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RickShu
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Hi WA74,

I can not tell an exact time plan to fix this issue because we may need to work with Intel and Apple together to solve this problem, so I suggest you always keep your MacOS up to date.

Regards,

-Rick

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WA74
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Thank you,

but in this case, i compare this with Win7 (32bit) & Office 2007…no problems !

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melegar
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That worked as a temporary solution.  I would appreciate if you could keep this thread in the loop for when the issue is resolved via a patch.  Thanks

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WA74
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any news ?

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WA74
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any news? 

the last patch(Version 8.5.7 (5528452) = same issue
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Mikero
Community Manager
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If we apply a fix for this we'll be sure to include it in the release notes.

As I mentioned tho, this happens on the Host Mac just using native Outlook/Office apps too, so we're still investigating where the root cause is.

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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needtothinkofan
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Started experiencing the same issue

Macbook Pro 2018

macOS 10.14.5 (18F203)

VMWare Fusion Version 11.1.0 (13668589)

Windows 7 guest

Accelerate 3D graphics enabled

External monitor (displayport)

this is basically making work impossible!

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