What's up with the window icons (minimize, maximize, close) of Workstation 16 (on Windows 10)? On Workstation 15 they were fine, on 16 the entire title bar seems weirdly tiny.
Unfortunately that is "normal" for Workstation 16. The application title bar under Windows is almost entirely broken with the minimize, maximize and close buttons switching between what you show in your screenshot, and more Windows Vista-esque longer style buttons (see attachment). The title bar buttons also have very broken hover states; hovering over a button then moving the mouse cursor outside of the application causes the button to become "stuck" in the hovered state. Hopefully VMware will rectify this with the 16.2 release and go back to using the standard (and much more functional) Windows API UI controls.
I've been annoyed by the nonstandard, changing sizes of the title bar. There is also the matter of the rounded corners. I know windows is now thinking about adding rounded edges to make it seem 'less harsh' and assumed this was a way for Workstation to test their own iteration before it became standard. I don't like it but it only shows when the windows isn't maximized so that's less of an issue for me.
MORE annoying is way the title bar remains 'white' when it has focus. Unlike normal programs the title bar doesn't reflect my color options when it is focused. See the attached example with Explorer in focus above Workstation 16 on the top where the title bar is darker. Then on the bottom Workstation 16 is focused and remains white along with Explorer which no longer has focus. I keep finding myself moving the mouse around and re-clicking into the same window to ensure I am actually in the VM as it's not switching colors to show that it is active.
> MORE annoying is way the title bar remains 'white' when it has focus. Unlike normal programs the title bar doesn't reflect my color options when it is focused. See the attached example with Explorer in focus above Workstation 16 on the top where the title bar is darker. Then on the bottom Workstation 16 is focused and remains white along with Explorer which no longer has focus. I keep finding myself moving the mouse around and re-clicking into the same window to ensure I am actually in the VM as it's not switching colors to show that it is active.
OMG, this.
Registered just to say that I absolutely hate this. Not only is the color wrong, the size is wrong too (its too short), and its been what like a year since WS16 release and it STILL hasn't been fixed. Wake up, VMWare!!
Oh hey, so it is. It properly reflects the system highlight color, too. I don't usually upgrade (if it ain't broke don't fix it) but this was worthwhile. Thanks!
What I can tell you is that my machine does to have this behavior at all. My title bar, minimize and maximize buttons are all a consistent size. Your screenshot shows them all smaller than Windows Explorer. This could be a difference in settings that we have that is forcing this. This does look abnormal to me.
I never noticed it ever being broken, and I ran all of these versions for a long time. I saw you asked if it was fixed, and no one responded.
The Windows SDK forces a standard look amongst all applications. VMWare should be using the SDK, so for an application to have a very different look in minimize, maximize and title bar hints at some other things going on. Do you have any third-party items installed at all that change Windows behavior?
Check the focus image I had attached in my earlier post on this thread and you can see the difference
Note you won't be able to reproduce this issue unless you already have Settings > Personalization > Colors > Show accent color on the following surfaces > 'Title bars and window borders' enabled and likely wouldn't notice if are not already 'used' to having it enabled.
The version of 16 that 'broke dark mode' without the pref ini entry getting manually added 'fixed' it for me but now it's back to overwriting it with the custom themes in more recent versions again. I got tired of waiting for them so I searched for a fix that can be manually applied if you are familiar with a hex editor. I've done a little testing with it (a few hours so far) and it's working great on my system!
This is ONLY for build 16.1.2.8432 aka 16.1.2 build 17966106 of "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" with SHA1 08ef59db2175e984e38c04087ce9de1986c4c383
File Name: vmware.exe File Offset: c1389 Original: 8A 00 84 C0 0F 84 Overwritten: C6 00 00 90 90 E9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is ONLY for build 16.2.2.20227 aka 16.2.2 build 19200509 of "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" with SHA1 62c10ffd00c6bc7da2633add043fd7884f0c34d
This stops vmware.exe from 'overwriting' the title bar with its custom theme stuff and allows the default windows title bar size, buttons, colors and active status to remain and continue to function as "expected"
Now we just need an option to 'exclude the title bar' from theme changes to get added and everyone can be happy again!
This is ONLY for build 16.2.3.21887 aka 16.2.3 build-19376536 of "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" with SHA1 dab297c5c4227d2988e2780ba6a25b288383b6c1
This is ONLY for build 16.2.4.28481 aka 16.2.4 build-20089737 of "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" with SHA1 cddf69d3825df73b739d2cef969b5d03f100e933
