Fusion 5: Unity grayed out

[dmgraham]

Not sure if this is related to sleep, but after I'm away from my machine when I return Fusion will no longer go into Unity mode; the option is grayed out. Logging out and back in restores Unity, but it's a PITA. The VMWare tools icon is still running in the system tray. Any ideas?

Mac OS 10.8.1

Guest OS: Windows XP Pro SP3

VMWare Fusion 5.0.0

- Dave

[80117]

Possible solution to Unity being grayed out and dragging dropping not working in Windows 7

Turn off User Access Control in Windows 7

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101905...

How to turn off UAC

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975787

After doing this, Fusion 5.0.2 worked perfectly on a Macbook Pro Retina

[sdominiak]

With my 15" MacBook Pro late 2011 model this solution only worked temporarily for me. After a few sleep cycles the problem with unity came back.

[rienk]

My question is a litte bit different. I've installed Snow Leopard Server as a guest using VM ware 5.01. Host is OSX Lion.

I also can't use Unity. Does anybody know if using Unity is possble in this configuration.

I'll have to admit that I'm not confident in using a Server version of OSX.

[dariusd]

Hi rienk, and welcome to the VMware Communities!

Unity is not supported for Mac OS X guests at this time.  Sorry!

What's your concern with using the Server version of Mac OS X?

Cheers,

--

Darius

[virtualfish321]

Sorry to interject here, but maybe we can open another post about OS X Server.  I particularly would like VMWare to focus on fixing this problem that they broke with version 5 of fusion that I paid the "upgrade" for.  I'm quite perturbed that I paid to upgrade only to have it break one of the main things I use fusion for, and I haven't seen any attempts from VMWare to fix it.  Only posts from people with workarounds to fix it.

Please VMWare, fix it.  I paid for the upgrade and now I hardly use it because of this.  That's annoying.  I don't want to have to go back to version 4 when I've paid for this upgrade already.

Thanks

[mikeg99]

I installed 5.0.2 four days ago.  Unity has been working properly since then.  It appears to be fixed although there was nothing in the 5.0.2 release notes referencing this problem.

[drohrer]

I will be out of the office Tuesday, November 20th through Thanksgiving weekend with limited access to email. I'll be back in the office Monday, November 26th.

[virtualfish321]

I also upgraded to 5.0.2, and it seems to have resolved the unity problem, which is nice.  However, I am now experiencing issues where it gets confused on which windows to bring forward or back.  This happens when using both Windows and Mac windows.  It's kind of annoying, where you're working in a window then all of a sudden it goes to back and another window comes to the front.

I'm not going to say this is as bad as the unity problem not working at all, but it can get pretty annoying when you're typing something and all of a sudden the window goes to the back and something else comes to the front.  Like while I'm typiing this in Safari, my Outlook window came forward three times and I had to click this window to get it back from outlook.

Anyone else seeing this as well?

[mikeg99]

I was using Windows Quicken this morning in Unity mode on Fusion 5.0.2 and the main Quicken window went into the background for about 15 seconds and then re-spawned in Unity.  Not earth-shattering but a bit strange.

[virtualfish321]

Well, not good that it happened to you, but good that I'm not the only one seeing this!  Looks like vmware got one step closer to fixing this, but not all the way there.  Hopefully they'll figure it out.

Wish I hadn't upgraded to 5!

[mikeg99]

5.0.2 NOT FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just came out of sleep.  Waiting to Enter Unity"......  Same old, same old. 

[virtualfish321]

lovely.

I think i may uninstall 5 and go back to 4.

ugh

[sdominiak]

I can confirm too that it is still broken in 5.0.2.

There was still a problem in Fusion 4 with losing the mouse focus:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2050339

Maybe they fixed it, but if not I'm not sure which is worse the bug from this discussion or the one mentioned in the link. Hopefully we will get a fix soon.

[rwin]

I confirm this issue as well for 5.0.2. I initially tought the update fixed the issue since I went a few days without any problems. I then closed my support ticket with vmware, a few sleep-cycles later and the problem was back...  sigh.

The problem is very annoying but at least for me it is always resolved with a logout/login of the Windows-client.

[virtualfish321]

Yes, after many days of it appearing to work, it finally failed when coming out of sleep, and I was stuck at the gray screen again.

<sigh>

[virtualfish321]

Fixed my issue.  Uninstalled 5 and went back to 4.1.3.  No more frustration! 

[brookssw]

I am experiencing exactly the same problem as mikeg99. I take my laptop home every day, and almost without fail, when I wake it back up, I experience the problem "waiting to enter unity..."

If this continues I'm going to get a refund on my upgrade cost for 5 and just stick with 4. This problem NEVER occurred on 4.

[brookssw]

I finally gave up. Between this problem, and the issues with sluggish mouse and general bad performance, VMWare Fusion 5 has, for me, turned out to be an utter and complete waste of money.

[RJIn]

If possible upload the logs(Help>Collect support information) I'll try to find out the cause.

Thanks

[brookssw]

I’m afraid that I can’t afford to spend any more time trying to fix this; this is for my work machine and I’ve already lost multiple hours of productivity as a result. Not to mention that even if this issue were fixed, there would still be the show stopper of the slow mouse cursor blocking me from being able to use fusion 5. Perhaps some other folks here have more time to troubleshoot further.