Not a fan of the blue menu bar : /

[Aoxo]

I just updated to VMWare Player 5 from version 4.  I was really excited to see that the aweful blue frame was removed in favor of a standard window border.  Then I saw the big thick blue menu bar that occupies a considerable portion of the top of the window yet contains very little content.  The word "Player" and 4 icons occupy a very small part of this very large bar, 90% of which is just empty wasted space.  While it gives the window that Windows 7 look and feel, it really eats into the usable space and sort of distracts from whats running below.

I know I can change to fullscreen and allow the bar to transform and autohide..which I sometimes do...but there's also times when I prefer to run the VM in a window.  Sometimes I'll watch video in a fullscreen setting on the VM..but with vmware player in a windowed state that i can resize.

Is there any way to hide this beast?  If not..could an option be considered down the road to allow users to hide it somehow.  Something like an autohide, or perhaps hold down alt to display an oldschool style menu bar.  Ideally something compact yet functional similar to Firefox's "Firefox" button that takes over when you hide it's menu bar.

[bulletp2000]

Yeah, I TOTALLY agree with you.  In fact for me - it is a deal-breaker.

I upgraded to 5.01 today, and then immediately uninstalled it and rolled back to 4.0.5.

I use vmplayer for my personal use, and usually switch back and forth repeatedly between about 3 different VMs.  I never have cared for the "Full Screen" view, it makes it too much of a pain to switch VMs.   I understand that VM Workstation probably handles this better, but I have no need to purchase a license for Workstation - the player functionality is just fine.

Until today,I have always loved the VM Player product, but the new look (while it may be Windows 7 friendly) is not user friendly.  It wastes WAY too much screen real estate.

My message to VMWare - please find a way to recover the wasted screen real estate.  I can stay down-converted at 4.0.5 for a while (maybe a year), but eventually I will be behind the technology curve.  Then I will have to start looking at other virtualization companies - which would make me sad.