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Selecting text to delete

This may be affecting Workstation Pro too. It's been years and no one seems to have complained about this. When you select text, you would expect it to see it gone with hitting a key like delete or backspace. This doesn't work. If you select the text from left to right, it works sometimes, but almost never when you select it from right to left (and then hit a key to delete it). That can impact productivity big time when dealing with big chunks of text.

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RaSystemlord
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Which:

- host os (if Windows 10, which version, there are 10+ main versions)

- vmware version

- guest os (if Windows 10, which version, there are 10+ main versions)

- guest application

- VMware Tools installed or not

- VMware config modified or default. If modified, how.

For repeatability, preferably the example with some non-commercial software.

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RaSystemlord
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Thanks for the comprehensive explanation of the scope of the problem.

I'm glad you got it figured out.

For further analysis, I have no idea why and how graphics adapter affects things like this. Perhaps somebody else can up with a working theory on this. But, what I would like to know about the details of the problem itself:

You talk about "select text" and "certain keys". Well, in detail, what happens:

- when you got "text selected", I assume you mean a highlight of the text does happen, does control-c or control-x work? (which do the obvious things when they work)
- backspace, delete, del - their workings are sometimes a bit abstract with different keyboard layouts (perhaps NumLock plays a role, too, for some of this). Well, one of them should do what you desire
- if control-x, above worked, then it is about "deletion-keys"
- if control-x above did NOT work, then text selection itself did not happen. This is of course also application specific, but basic Windows Notepad should produce expected results

Anyway, depending on the tests above, perhaps the correlation between the problem and the graphics adapter can somehow be analyzed further.

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RaSystemlord
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Which:

- host os (if Windows 10, which version, there are 10+ main versions)

- vmware version

- guest os (if Windows 10, which version, there are 10+ main versions)

- guest application

- VMware Tools installed or not

- VMware config modified or default. If modified, how.

For repeatability, preferably the example with some non-commercial software.

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InfoSeek
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- Windows 10 all versions at least since 1803 and up

- Minimum v14 to latest (Pro)

- All applications involving text selection, even plain text like in web form text fields and notepad

- Yes, Tools always installed and matching VM Workstation version

- Config on defaults

Since I posted this I made the following discovery.

My system is having two video cards connected to 4 monitors. 3 of those connected to NVidia chipset card ASUS GOLD20TH-GTX980TI-P-6G-GAMING. The 4th is connected to EVGA GEFORCE GTX 760 also an NVidia chipset card. Both cards always on latest video driver.

Today, I started to experience crashes with EVGA GEFORCE GTX 760. I am suspecting that latest driver is problematic. The system freezes, Windows Explorer crashes, the monitor shows a very distorted image and goes blank followed by all other monitors going blank. Explorer restarts itself within 10-12 secs and everything gets back to normal including video on all monitors. To avoid this from happening I disconnected the monitor from the EVGA GEFORCE GTX 760 card. 

With the card disconnected I can now select text without issues. It's either those two cards not working well together or issue with the driver(s) all along. I always use 2 of the 4 monitors connected to ASUS GOLD20TH-GTX980TI-P-6G-GAMING for the VM, so it's not clear how the EVGA GEFORCE GTX 760 is causing the behavior. 

Monitor #1 Host, connected to EVGA GEFORCE GTX 760

Monitor #2 Host, connected to ASUS GOLD20TH-GTX980TI-P-6G-GAMING

Monitor #3 Host + VM, connected to ASUS GOLD20TH-GTX980TI-P-6G-GAMING

Monitor #4 Host + VM, connected to ASUS GOLD20TH-GTX980TI-P-6G-GAMING

I have used different connection combinations and different monitors in the past but always used those two cards. The issue was the same

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RaSystemlord
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Thanks for the comprehensive explanation of the scope of the problem.

I'm glad you got it figured out.

For further analysis, I have no idea why and how graphics adapter affects things like this. Perhaps somebody else can up with a working theory on this. But, what I would like to know about the details of the problem itself:

You talk about "select text" and "certain keys". Well, in detail, what happens:

- when you got "text selected", I assume you mean a highlight of the text does happen, does control-c or control-x work? (which do the obvious things when they work)
- backspace, delete, del - their workings are sometimes a bit abstract with different keyboard layouts (perhaps NumLock plays a role, too, for some of this). Well, one of them should do what you desire
- if control-x, above worked, then it is about "deletion-keys"
- if control-x above did NOT work, then text selection itself did not happen. This is of course also application specific, but basic Windows Notepad should produce expected results

Anyway, depending on the tests above, perhaps the correlation between the problem and the graphics adapter can somehow be analyzed further.

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InfoSeek
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Thanks for the analysis. These past few days, the issue resurfaced . . . until NVDIA released a hot fix for the video driver yesterday, which it didn't just fix the video card driver crashes but the copy/paste issue, at least for now. I opened a ticket with them the same time I posted here but they didn't have anything of substance and outside the norm to recommend in troubleshooting this. In the meantime, they released the new driver which I installed. That said, I can no longer reproduce it, at least for now.

In regards to your questions :

- when you got "text selected", I assume you mean a highlight of the text does happen, does control-c or control-x work? (which do the obvious things when they work)

Yes, I see the text highlighted in color based on Windows theme. Neither keyboard key combinations or mouse helps with copying/cutting or deleting the text. 

- backspace, delete, del - their workings are sometimes a bit abstract with different keyboard layouts (perhaps NumLock plays a role, too, for some of this). Well, one of them should do what you desire

I never use the NumLock and none of the above keys work when it happens

- if control-x, above worked, then it is about "deletion-keys" :

I would have known if it worked because I am a 'Keyboard guy' and use that combination a lot. Unfortunately, it makes no difference.

- if control-x above did NOT work, then text selection itself did not happen. This is of course also application specific, but basic Windows Notepad should produce expected results

In that case, the highlighted text shown is an illusion and deceptive.

Even using shift - left or down arrows, which I love because it's more precise and easier to use in many cases than mouse, still doesn't enable any of the above or any other keys to delete the text.

I also like to highlight the text and start typing over as a shortcut to deleting first.

This phenomenon is like creating a protective bubble between what's selected and what you can do with it through OS + hardware that work normally. And that just gave me an idea. To try to replicate the behavior in a VM Ubuntu I have, but if the video driver is to blame and the latest hotfix fixed it, I will be out of luck. I could even try install Ubuntu on the host machine and run the Windows VMs on Ubuntu host. All that of course will take me some time 🙂

 

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RaSystemlord
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Thanks for the explanation. This is, as you indicate, ghostly and strange ... and interesting. I don't know how the desktop works and what is the correlation to display drivers.

If you change the Host and, as you say, display drivers make all the difference, it will change the ball game to something else. I mean, with Linux host it will be different ... providing that it isn't a bug in Windows Desktop itself (you mentioned some been customized). Well, for the latter, you might want to try with another profile ( = user), which wouldn't have the same changes (but some of the changes that you have made, may be system-wide and in that case a new user wouldn't help).

For changing the ball game right now, you might want to turn OFF 3D acceleration from the Guest. I guess, it is ON at the moment ... perhaps not that interesting if you do need it. (There are also other display-related settings on VM, which might have been changed from the defaults).

Be this as it may, I would expect this to work OK on a Linux Host (use an extra disk for boot-up and disconnect the windows boot disk ... I mean for easy testing). Installing the latest Ubuntu or Kubuntu LTS version (20.04) with all the basic applications and VMware included, doesn't take very long (1-2 hours depending on Internet speed = net time, total time longer).

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