VMWare Fusion V5 Bug - Mouse Problem - Black Box Visually Flickers over Mouse Pointer

[wrhahn]

VMWare Fusion V5 Bug - Black Box Visually Flickers over Mouse Pointer

In VMWare Fuison V5, running a Win7 Guest, I see a Black Box Visually Flickering as the Mouse Pointer transitions to a Cursor symbol, etc. This happens across many applications, quite pervasively.  When the Mouse pointer is moving across the screen and is transitioning from the pointer arrow to something else, like a blinking cursor, or some other non-arrow pointer symbol like a scroll-wheel symbol, the black box will visually flicker on the screen.  An example of when these transitions occur is when the mouse pointer passes into and/or out of a text field or a text area, as well as many other places (e.g. Scroll wheel).  Please reply if you have seen this as well.  I think this is a bug and needs to be reported, addressed and fixed.

When I am running a lot of business applications in Win7 on VMWare Fusion V5 on my Retina MacBook Quad-core with 16GBmem (i.e. the system is heavily taxed) this black-box flickering makes my system UNUSABLE IN BUSINESS SITUATIONS!!!

This is of course ironic, because VMWare Fusion V5 does fix issues that are supposed to make Fusion MORE usable on Retina MacBooks.  I have wasted multiple hours troubleshooting this bug and I hope that my research and information in this post helps save others time, as well as provide VMWare Fusion Support some of the details they may use to more quickly solve this BUSINESS CRITICAL problem / bug.

Here are two pictures and two movies that show what I'm talking about:

I am running VMWare Fusion V5 and/or V4.1.3 on a Retina MacBook.  This only happens on VMWare Fusion V5.  It works fine in V4.1.3 and before.  Yes, I   have upgraded, uninstalled and reinstalled VMWare Tools.  Yes I have also uninstalled/reinstalled VMWare  Fusion itself, including manually removing Library   files/directories/caches.  I have also turned on and off 3D   Acceleration, run it in fullscreen as well as non-fullscreen.

There is some mention of this flickering black box bug on earlier versions of Fusion (V4.0.1+), on VMWare Workstation several years ago and recently on some Fusion Windows 8 guest beta testing forums.  This black box bug does NOT happen in VMWare Fusion V4.1.3.  I also have not personally seen it in any previous version dating back to V3.x in the 2010 timeframe, when I first started using VMWare Fusion.  I do see some mention of the SAME Black Box bug on some other discussion threads & Support Knowledgebase entries, listed below:

   >>> http://communities.vmware.com/message/2106237#2106237 (Mouse Problems with Fusion V5)

   >>> http://communities.vmware.com/message/1829797#1829797

   >>> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1261&slice...

PLEASE RESPOND if you have seen this black box flicker bug AND/OR if you have any information about support looking into this bug!

Thank You.

[wrhahn]

TWO UPDATES:

1) I have tried the VMWare Fusion V5.0.1 update and that does NOT solve the problem.

2) I also tried the "Always Optimize Mouse for Games" workaround mentioned in "Mouse Problems w/Fusion 5" post/discussion ( http://communities.vmware.com/message/2106237#2106237 )  While that does help a bit, it is an UNACCEPTABLE workaround because it changes the SPEED of the mouse, making it a MUCH slower tracking speed in my Win7 VMWare Guest, as well as changing the way it transitions into, out of and between my Win7 VMWare Guest and Mac OS X Host operating system.

I truly hope VMWare will fix this Black Box Flicker Bug Mouse Problem in Fusion V5.  It is quite disturbing.

[Blahdiblah]

There's already a thread about this:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2107864#2107864

Edit: I see you've already seen it. Why not post there?

[wrhahn]

I discovered that thread/discussion after I created this one.

Since the "Mouse problems w/fusion 5" Discussion thread seems to be the most heavily visited discussion on this issue, I will defer to that discussion thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2107864#2107864

For those reading this post, please make further comments and discussion entries in the "Mouse problems w/fusion 5" thread, found at the above link.

Thank you.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Let's see, 1 post on the forum.  Links to competitors product reviews.

Hmmmm

[wrhahn]

freejack86's post is TRULY ANNOYING.

Would it help to 'report as abuse'?  [Edit] I just did report it as abuse > "Spam".

It's especially annoying since I created this discussion.

[wrhahn]

I have been using VMWare for years on Windows and Mac.  I have been using VMWare Fusion on Mac for almost 3 years and I have found it to be AMAZINGLY FAAAAAST and STABLE.

BOTTOM LINE >>> Literally Windows 7 running on Mac on Fusion is FASTER for me than running Windows 7 natively on a Windows Laptop.  Not to mention the enahanced stability and having the best of both worlds Mac & Windows.

I honestly have not been tempted once to use parallels...due to the fact that VMWare Fusion has done such a great job for me...even in very highly demanding business applications that use a lot of DISK, CPU etc.

I'm sure there are other benefits to VMWare over Parallels....but the simplest is the best evidence for me.  It works, it's fast and it's stable.

Nuff said.

[wrhahn]

*******

SOLUTION WORKAROUND: Turn OFF Mouse Pointer Shadow inside VMWare Guest (e.g. Win7 Guest)
    >>> Goto Win Start > Mouse > Pointers > [uncheck] Enable pointer shadow

• Since disabling Mouse pointer shadow, I have not seen this Black Box Flicker problem in VWMare V5. 
  
• Occasionally with program-specific special pointer shapes, this problem happens to a very small degree, but it is minimal and momentary.
  
• Overall, with Mouse pointer shadow turned off/disabled, VMWare V5 is completely usable and worth using for it's speed, stability and Retina MacBook friendly capabilities.  Even if you're not using a Retina MacBook, my impression and experience is that VMWare Fusion V5 is a recommended upgrade and the best way to run Windows.
  

*******

Please use the following linked Discussion for further posts about this issue.

Since the "Mouse problems w/fusion 5" Discussion thread seems to be  the most heavily visited discussion on this issue, I will defer to that  discussion thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2107864#2107864

For  those reading this post, please make further comments and discussion  entries in the "Mouse problems w/fusion 5" thread, found at the above  link.

Thank you.