Fusion: Mac menu bar not available in full screen

[GlennyG]

On Fusion 1 and 2, the Mac menu bar would show and hide when in full screen. This was very useful to show the file menu to open up recent VMs and for suspending, changing the display mode (unity/window/full), etc.

Now the Mac menu's disappeared and is replaced with the "Full screen title bar" which always shows whenever the full screen VM looses focus even if it's set to permanently hide, but underneath the Mac menu. Seems a bit half-implemented and a straight copy from the VMWare/windows but without considering the Mac user interface where the Mac menu sits on top.

Now the Mac menu never shows when in full screen mode.

1) How can I get the Mac menu to show in full screen mode?

2) How can I completely remove the pointless "Full screen title bar"?

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

It is my understanding that the following is unsupported although it should work.

Edit the VMware Fusion preferences file...

/Users/$/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/preferences

Add the following:

fusion.showFullScreenTitleBar = "FALSE"

Note: Shutdown, not suspend, the Virtual Machine and then close VMware Fusion before editing the file.

[silvain]

Thanks for this solution! It works!

I tried the new version of fusion and was disappointed to see the mac menu bar gone. Your suggesion solves the problem.

Request to vmware: please restore the original behaviour or at least add an extra menu option 'Hide new menu bar and restore original mac menu bar' (or something like that ;-).

[GlennyG]

Terrific, thanks.

Any idea where a reference is to the preferences file?

Now to find out how to show the Dock!

[madranch]

This is over my head...

how and exactly where should this be added to said preference file.  What an awlful UI change.

m

[WoodyZ]

With the Virtual Machine shutdown,  not suspend, and VMware Fusion closed the easiest way is to just run  (copy and paste, as is, and press Enter) the following command in a  Terminal.

echo 'fusion.showFullScreenTitleBar = "FALSE"' >> /Users/${USER}/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/preferences

Or  unzip the attached showFullScreenTitleBar.zip file and execute  (double-click) the enclosed showFullScreenTitleBar shell script.

Message was edited by: WoodyZ

[madranch]

Thanks Woody.

How do I change it back if it messes up something or causes some other kind of unforeseen grief.

Windows going thru 56updates so I'll let that finish first. I'll be glad when I don't have to use windows at all anymore!

[WoodyZ]

How do I change it back if it messes up something or causes some other kind of unforeseen grief.

Just remove the line from the file or extract and execute (double-click) the RemoveshowFullScreenTitleBar shell script in the attached RemoveshowFullScreenTitleBar.zip file.

The equivalent Terminal command in the shell script is as follows:

sed '/fusion.showFullScreenTitleBar = "FALSE"/d' /Users/${USER}/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/preferences > /Users/${USER}/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/preferences.tmp; mv -f -v /Users/${USER}/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/preferences.tmp /Users/${USER}/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/preferences

[madranch]

thanks gonna give it a try now