Creating El Capitan VM on MacBook Pro fails due to lacking connection to keyboard and mouse-pad

[GeorgeQ]

General data:

Host system: MacBook Pro 2019-16"-2,4 i9 8C-64GB-2TB / macOS 12.5.1 /

Vmware: Fusion 12.2.4

Intended guest system: OS X 10.11 (El Capitan)

Issue:

I would like to create a VM that runs on OS X 10.11, using Vmware Fusion 12.2.4. Originally I worked on a Mac Pro desktop (2009), finally running on OS X 10.11. I kept the OS X El Capitan-Installation.app as well as an El Capitan installation disk-image. I tried to create the intended VM using Fusion 12.2.4 according the prescriptions. At the first attempt the process stopped when the VM searched for connection with the bluetooth keyboard and mouse (in other VM's which I have created this functioned flawlessly). I found no way of making the buetooth connection. When I unchecked in VMware settings using the bluetooth connections of the mac, and started the creation process anew, it went on until the El Capitan configuration screen appeared and I had to make the configuration choices. Then it turned out that the VM also had no connection to the build-in keyboard and mouse-pad of the MacBook Pro host system. So, here the creation ended and I don't now how to go on with it. Hoping that someone can help, George Lengkeek.

[dempson]

This is a fairly well known problem which I first saw with guests running OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and in a later update of VMware Fusion it also affected guests running OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

There is a compatibility problem between VMware Fusion's USB support and some older macOS versions. The solution: go into the settings for the virtual machine and change the USB settings to disable USB 3.0 and force the VM to use USB 2.0.

Details are in this discussion thread (and probably several others):

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Discussions/Keyboard-Mouse-not-working-in-Yosemite-V...

[GeorgeQ]

Thank you dempson! Your answer solved the problem! It was a real Hot Shot!