No mouse in Guest

[Naki]

I decided to upgrade one of my WinXP Pro guests from 6.0 VM version to 6.5 VM version.

It showed lots and lots of PCI PCI-PCI Bridges being installed, and I confirmed them with the mouse.

Then it installed the USB controller. Then, it installed a HID device, which I assume is the mouse. I tried to confirm by clicking Finish, but it would not confirm. So I reset the Guest.

Turned out, mouse was no longer a device being recognized, that's why I was unable to click on Finish.

Now, only the keyboard works. The mouse cursor shows, but it is the Host OS cursor. The Guest behaves like there is no mouse at all. Using Windows XP without a mouse is kinda problematic.

More details: WinXP Pro 64-bit Host, WinXP Pro 32-bit Guest. 4 GB of RAM on Host. 2 mice on host, one PS/2 and one USB. The PS/2 one is wired, the other is wireless. Neither mouse works in Guest.

Restarting Guest doesn't help.

How do I get the Guest to recognize the mouse again? I tried removing the VMWare pointing device mouse and reinstall it, but it didn't help.

[Naki]

Guys, I need help here!

I tried removing HID devices from Human Intreface Devices. There were two HID-compliant devices listed + 2 USB Human Interface Devices.

To my amazement, after I reinstalled the first one, the mouse started working. But as soon as the screen prompting for install on the second HID device appeared, the mouse was gone again.... During install Unknown devices (2 of them) appeared briefly in the Mouse section of Device Manager. Then they disappeared and only WMWare pointing device remained.

Uninstalling and reinstalling VMWare Tools did NOT help.

[Naki]

I turned on MouseKeys and am using that for now. But I don't want to install another Guest, better fix this one. So if have any idea, please post!

[iserlohn · Accepted solution]

It looks like a bug in the USB layer. If you remove the USB device from the vmx configuration, it should work again.

[Naki]

LOL, I was being too impatient, and didn't check the thread. I only saw your reply today.

And guess what, it works!

End of VMX file:

vmci0.id = "-833027026"

usb:1.deviceType = "hub"

usb:0.deviceType = "mouse"

debugStub.winOffsets.value = "0x88,0x84,0x18,0x190,0x174,16,0x22c,0x1f0,0x224,0x20,0x18,0x18,0x20,0x24,4"

I removed the following line from the VMX file:

usb:0.deviceType = "mouse"

then proceeded to remove the USB HID (Human Interface Device) from Device Manager HID section. Then used the Device Manager "Scan for hardware changes" function, and voila! the mouse worked.

NOTE: I have two mice, one PS/2 wired, one USB wireless.

The Device Manager looks a bit weird now, but as long the mouse is working I'm happy. It is also working after a restart, so it seems fixed.

Here's how it looks: (attached picture) - usually the Mouse section should only have the VMWare pointing device, but as you can see, it doesn't for me...