Disable Lion Full Screen Mode

[bleh2947249]

Is it possible to disable Fusion's use of OSX's full screen mode, and go back to the way it was in SL, or am I SoL? (har har)

I absolutly hate full screen mode. That goes double for fusion's use of it.  It definitely makes my life more difficult. :smileysilly:

Thanks!

[kinless]

SleepyJay wrote:

So, I am a little confused by this forum thread. Is the single monitor or dual-monitor-both-screen modes experience different?

It's only an issue if you're using all your available monitors for full-screen mode. If you have a dual-monitor set up but only use one monitor for full screen, then it stays in that desktop space (as we would all expect it to). But if you have the "Use All Displays In Full Screen" option selected, that's when it switches to its own space and becomes inaccessible via the shortcut keys.

As a matter of fact, I'm currently using just one monitor in order to sidestep the issue, but obviously it hampers my productivity due to having only one screen. Another option, although I don't know if it would work, is to hook up a 3rd screen (if your machine supports it) and run your environment in just 2 screens so it stays in the proper space. Again, I don't know if Fusion is capable of supporting such a configuration.

I've been using Fusion since the beginning, but that won't stop me from switching to Parallels if this isn't resolved soon.

[SleepyJay]

kinless wrote:

I've been using Fusion since the beginning, but that won't stop me from switching to Parallels if this isn't resolved soon.

Um. As I said, Parallels is WORSE. Now I'm pretty sure I'm on Parallels Desktop 7 at work, where I have the problem.

Just using ONE screen gives you the same Lion FS stupidness--not any different with two screens.

Given that VMWare can do the correct thing with one VM screen, I'm sort of just assuming they can eventually do it with two without making it a Lion FS.

jason.

[kinless]

SleepyJay wrote:

Just using ONE screen gives you the same Lion FS stupidness--not any different with two screens.

What build are you running? Not that I should probably be off-topicing & linking to Parallel's site on here, but this KB notice states that build 7.0.14922 has the "Option to choose Mac OS X Snow Leopard-style full screen mode instead of native OS X Lion full screen mode." That build was released back in Sep 2011 so they've had a solution available for a while.

That feature alone would be cause enough for me to switch (if it works the way they say), although I admit I don't know what other (dis)advantages that software has, as I've never used it, but whatever helps get me back my productivity, then that's where I'll migrate.

~j

[SleepyJay]

I wasn't in the office yesterday, but now that I'm back to a machine running Parallels... yeah, you are correct. Oops. I found the setting to put Parallels into SL FS mode for both one or two monitors.

This makes me confident that VMWare could easily change it for two monitors. And I hope they do.

I guess I'm sticking with my Parallels...for now.

I still like VMWare better for my home and future work machines.

jason.

[blahteblahblah]

I'm not sure if we should declare victory or if I'm seeing buggy behavior, but as of 4.1.2, I'm no longer seeing Lion's craptastic full screen when setting my VMs to full screen mode.  I currently have centos and windows both full screen on the same desktop along with a bunch of over programs.  Is all once again right with the world?  If it is, this is the bestest gift in the whole wide world, and thanks.

I suppose I could read release notes... 

[dmshaw]

Don't I wish.  I installed 4.1.2 to check and it still has the Lion full screen behavior with no option to select the Snow Leopard behavior like Parallels has.

[GlennyG]

Definitely not.

You're probably seeing ONE screen of many behaviour.  If you "use all displays in full screen" then its as dire as ever.

Please VMWare,  do the world a favour and give us back our old way of working.  Apple are just plain wrong.

[blahteblahblah]

That is quite possible.  I do have multi monitors now and did not before.  Sorry for the false alarm guys. 

[kinless]

I was hoping that v5.0 would have fixed this and added the feature to choose between SL and L/ML full screen, but alas.

I did find a sort-of workaround using a combination of the apps TotalSpaces (to get back the spaces grid in 10.7 or 10.8) and Keyboard Maestro (setting hot keys for whatever you want). Control 1-6 still goes to the designated space, while Control 7 (assigned using Keyboard Maestro) goes to the full screen VMWare Windows 7. It's good enough as long as just 1 VM is open. I don't know how I'd get it to behave if I had more than one VM open.

Fusion 5.1, guys...

[FoxtrotIndia]

I miss the old way as well, because I now no longer can have xScope active on top of a full screen virtual machine. Quite annoying to have to switch over to windowed mode every time, as the tool is invaluable to make sure that your user interfaces can still be used with (partial) color blindness.

Maybe you could allow us to have two virtual monitors with one physical display, each one getting its own window on the Mac? That way I could have the main machine full screen, and a separate window for the testing, where I could also have access to xScope.

[GlennyG]

Thanks for letting me know that VMWare Fusion 5 is not worth a carrot.  I could have been convinced to pay $50 if this bug was fixed,  but as it's not,  there's nothing in Fusion 5 that is worth $5 let alone $50.

Seems like an annual licence fee for "updating" everything that doesn't need updating whilst leaving the diffucult problems untouched.  Like providing a working mouse driver which scrolls horizontally.

[craigpratt]

I've been suffering from the full-screen issue since last fall and just now found this thread hoping to find a solution or at least recognition of the issue from VMWare.

I need keyboard shortcuts. When running more than one VM or more than one screen, the current behavior is not usable.

I didn't know that Parallels has addressed this. Guess I'll be switching to that soon if there's no fix on the horizon.

In short: PLEASE FIX THIS. It's a glaring problem for anyone who uses full-screen VMs on a daily basis.

[SleepyJay]

I guess I'm still kind of confused. Why can't you open both VMs in full screen, and toggle between them as if they were Mission Control "spaces"?

I just put two VMs into full screen, use both displays and because they were both at the end of the list of desktops, I could easily Ctrl- left and right between them. If I used single displays, I can manage them through Mission Control (put them next to each other). I'm sure any other combination is just knowing how to manage Mission Control correctly.

Am I missing something?

You want "maximized" screen, but not "Lion Full Screen". Aka. One monitor with two different apps in full screen? Why is it a problem to keep two apps side-by-side in Mission Control and handle it that way?

I don't know if Parallels works better. I can try at work Monday.

Message was edited by: SleepyJay

[craigpratt]

If I have 3 spaces desktops, and a couple full-screen VMs, then I have 5 desktops (assuming I don't have any other full-screen apps open - safari, etc).

The point is to be able to access them using keyboard shortcuts. Pre-Lion, full screen apps lived on their desktop. So you could use Control-1/2/3/4/... to access a full-screen VM. e.g. Control-3 was my Linux VM, Control-4 was my Windows VM no matter which screen I was on. Control-arrow is not a substitute since the number of arrow presses will depend on the screen *and* the number of open full-screen apps, etc.

In my case, this is not a multi-monitor issue. This is a matter of being able to jump in and out of VMs. And I can adapt to use a different key, if necessary. But I want it to be one key and stateless.

[SleepyJay]

By "not a multi-monitor issue" you mean the VM is in a single, full-sized window? That would be a MC Desktop you could switch to by Control-1, as you described above. If you mean "full screen and using two monitors", then you are out of luck with VMWare alone AFAIK.

BTW, just to heap on the confusion, in my Windows VM, there is "Full Screen" from the View menu (which puts it maximized into a MC Desktop) and the Lion FS button (the two arrows in the upper right). The Lion FS button puts me into "Lion FS with both monitors" mode in Windows. However, I made a (broken) Solaris 10 VM for testing and there is ONLY the Lion FS mode that gets us into trouble (with the stupid useless grey second screen). So, it sounds like if you can live with your Linux in a large window instead of a Lion FS desktop, you could keep them both in MC Desktop modes and be happy. (I pressed the green + and removed the menu bar and it looked ok).

Alternatively, Total Spaces ($18) was able to set up hot keys for any Lion full-screen app. I opened two different "full-screen dual monitor"  VMs and set up hot keys (ALT-CTRL-9 and ALT-CTRL-0) and was able to switch between them no problem. Again, these are not MC Desktops--they are the Lion FS ones you don't normally get hot keys for.

Lastly, I didn't confirm this exact scenario in Parallels, but I'm pretty sure they are MC Desktops and not Lion FS apps when using two monitors (the question is still moot if only using single monitor). If you don't want to spend the money on Parallels, and need your Linux VM in Lion FS, Total Spaces might be your best bet. Seems like a terminal window is a silly use of a Lion FS mode, but what do I know.

[Kallendbor]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned (I have not read all 4 pages of posts), and it may not fix everyone's issues with Full Screen and the new mission control, but go to the desktop you want the full screen fusion app in, then you can right click on the Fusion icon in the dock, choose options, and assign to a desktop from there.  You will now be able to use the ctrl + # to move to that desktop.  If you are running multiple VMs, then I bet you can simply Command tilde between the VMS at this point (I have not tested it).  I believe that this resolves the problem mentioned by the OP and several others, as I searched for the solution to this problem and found this forum post as the number one hit, and it is my problem, and assign to desktop fixed the problem for me. 

Some usage notes:  I use one VM on a laptop I never connect to a larger monitor, and multiple VMs on a work laptop on a very large monitor.  This solution works on the one VM laptop.  The multiple VM laptop I keep the vms in windowed mode so I have not run into this issue there (27" cinema display means not having to cuss out Mountain Lion's spaces implementation or Fusions's Implementation of Full Screen).

I hope this helps!

Nick

[wolfie_wolf]

Wow VMWARE... this is an issue since years now and i'm basically suffering from it as well.

So far i'm working around it by accessing my Win VM via JumpDesktop (the devs here have added the radio button to choose between SL style fullscreen and L/ML style fullscreen within a week or two after i had requested it!).

This however is not a long term solution for me.

Like craigpratt has mentioned above i'm very mich inclined to switch to Parallels instead of upgrading Fusion...

-> think about it... it's a very very small feature request... and if there's already a few guys here thinking to spend their money elsewhere over this then i think it might be better to have some dev add this feature which should only take a few hours to implement.