Directly connect USB mouse to VM in Fusion on MacOS Catalina

[greggman]

Is it possible to directly connect a USB mouse to a VM in Fusion? For some USB devices I get asked whether to connect to VM or Mac but no message came up for a USB mouse I plugged into my machine. The mouse has non-generic features that can only be accessed via software so if possible I need it to appear as a USB device in the VM.

[dariusd · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is possible to connect a USB mouse directly to a virtual machine running on Fusion.  Instructions to do so are in this VMware Knowledge Base article​.

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Darius

[greggman]

Thank you for pointing out that article. Unfortunately it didn't seem to work.

The mouse doesn't show up in the USB devices

Any other ideas what I might have configured wrong?

[dariusd]

That list only shows the devices which are set to automatically connect to a virtual machine.

On the virtual machine's toolbar, there's a wrench icon to access the VM's settings, and a ">" button just to its right.  If you click on the ">" button, does your USB mouse show up in the list of devices there?

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Darius

[greggman]

Actually it worked. I forgot to enable the kernel extension