I recently downloaded a copy of VMplayer, basically as a first step in considering a possible later upgrade to VMware workstation. I'm running it on a Linux host (Ubuntu 12.04, should it matter). All works well together with the Gnome window managers (metacity or compiz), but since I'm an old-time fvwm user, I recently turned my account into using fvwm2. This window manager just helps me speeding up my work since I can more easily switch around between various workspaces.
Now, I notice some odd behaviour of VMplayer together with fvwm2, and I'm afraid VMware workstation might suffer from that as well, so I'd like to report it.
When running the guest OS in fullscreen mode, and returning from fullscreen mode again, the window just "disappears". It's no longer present in fvwm's window list either, so there's no means to regain access to it. The VM itself continues to run; when trying to run the player a second time, it (correctly) reports it as busy. The only remedy to this situation is to send the vmplayer process a SIGINT, which makes it popping up the confirmation box for suspending the VM. Once suspended, it can then be restarted the normal way.
Even more serious (and annoying) is the behaviour when switching off the fullscreen mode window. Remember, this is fvwm, and a common way to switch virtual windows in fvwm is to just push the pointer towards a screen border, which makes it flip around the viewport. However, VMplayer in fullscreen mode obviously holds an X11 pointer grab which remains active even after flipping the window. Then, there's no method to get back again to the VMplayer window, in order to continue. My guess is that VMplayer should obey the LeaveNotifyEvent (even though, from its point of view, it appears to be "impossible" to get it), and release the pointer grab. The only remedy from this situation is to log into the machine over the network, and kill the process holding the pointer grab, as well as the vmware-vmx process in order to eventually release the VM for a subsequent relaunch.
