Workstation 9: Problem with mouse position in virt...

quiettime · ‎05-13-2013

I'm running VMWare Workstation 9.0.2 build-1031769 on a Windows 7 x64 SP1 host.

One of my guest VMs (guest is Windows 7 x64 SP1) has a utility that changes the position of the mouse cursor. Unfortunately in the guest it appears the cursor position does not change. This is not the fault of the program, it runs fine on the host.

I disabled the following options:

'Ungrab when cursor leaves window', 'Hide cursor on ungrab', 'Grab when cursor enters window' and set 'Optimize for mouse: Never'

And I also added this to the vmx file:

vmmouse.present = "FALSE"

But no change. I've narrowed this issue down to something to do with VMWare tools (the guest has the latest tools update that came with my version of workstation). When I uninstalled VMWare tools the problem disappeared. When I reinstalled VMWare tools --this time a 'custom' reinstall that did not include the vmware mouse or usb mouse drivers-- the problem reappeared. Even if I stop the service and the vmtools process daemon. Sometimes the first cursor move in the guest would actually move but subsequent moves would not happen. Interestingly it appears the move may actually be happening but the visual cursor position for some reason just isn't updated.

The only reliable way to ensure the cursor changes position in the guest is for vmware tools to not be installed. As you can imagine this is not ideal. Also I have many virtual machines and I don't want to disable the grab options globally. Also I want VMWare tools in that guest for other reasons.

Does anyone have experience with what I'm describing? Can anyone who works for VMWare comment on this please? Ideally I would like to keep VMWare tools installed, have the grab options only disabled for that one specific guest, have the cursor position accurately reflect where the cursor is in a guest and if possible when I click in the VMWare window to input to the guest VMWare does not move my cursor in the guest to where I clicked in the host (in other words when I click in the guest I'm automatically at the cursor position in the guest, if that makes any sense).

Thanks

quiettime · ‎05-14-2013

I found something that works. I have these lines in the vmx file now:

vmmouse.present = "FALSE"

mouse.vusb.enable = "FALSE"

I found that mouse.vusb option in a VMWare article here. I have since installed VMWare Tools both with and without its USB and PS/2 mouse drivers. It doesn't seem to make any difference, the mouse pointer now moves fine programmatically in the guest. Although when I finalize things I'll probably just install without those drivers to be safe.

Also now when I click in that guest I'm automatically at the cursor position in the guest.

Also I have re-enabled 'Ungrab when cursor leaves window' and 'Grab when cursor enters window'. We prefer those preferences for the other VMs and with the two lines in that guest it appears that for that guest only it does not grab when the cursor enters the vm guest window (I have to click in the window) and it does not ungrab most of the time... but not all the time. I can fling the mouse out occasionally.

One bad thing about this is that in that guest VM now I can't use the back or forward buttons on my mouse. I used to be able to use them to control the browser in the guest but now I can't. The left and right mouse buttons work though.

All

Workstation 9: Problem with mouse position in virtual machine windows guest