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SeanMurphy20111
Contributor
Contributor

VmWare Fusion, dedicating a USB keyboard to the Guess OS.

Hi Everyone.

I have an configuration issue that I have yet found a solution too.

MacBookPro8,2, a Intel Core i7, 2gz with 8 gb of RAM. Snow lepid 10.6.8.

I am trying to make an External USB keyboard to be dedicated to the Windows 7 64 Bit professional guess OS under VMWare fusion 3.1.3 (416484). I have 2 questions. Q1 is not as important as Q2.

q1: I used to see a Button letting me telling VMWare to connect or disconnect the external USB keyboard to the Host or Guess os. The button only appeared when the External keyboard was connected. This button has disappeared. I suspect this is caused by myself telling the pop-up dialog to not prompt me any more. I cannot seem to get this dialog back. So I do not see the keyboard button any more. I still see Camera, networking, bluetooth, etc.

Q2. When I connect an External Apple USB keyboard or any other USB keyboard to the MAC. I want the Guess OS to have full control while it is connected. The MAC OS should not intersept any keys. I am going to use the laptop keyboard for the MAC OS and the External keyboard for the Guess Window OS. So is this possible? I am already aware of the keyboard mapping options within Windows and I have seen something for the MAC to permit keyboard remapping. I don't really want to go down this path because of the Jaws for Windows Screen Reader software running in the Windows Guess environment and Voice-Over which is running on the MAC os environment. There are major keyboard conflicts between the 2 programs. This is why I am trying to make the USB keyboard dedicated to the Guess OS.

I am a new user to the MAC environment and I have done extensive searching on the net with no luck.

I hope someone can help.

Regards
Sean

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2 Replies
tracywang
Expert
Expert

A1: To see the HID devices, add

usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

for details, refer to USB HID in:

A Power User's Guide to VMware Fusion

A2: One keyboard is enough I think, because you won't use two keyboard at the same time, right? The issue is how to avoid the duplicate shortcuts between host and guest, right? So, try go to VMware Fusion -> Preferences...-> Keyboard & Mouse -> Mac OS Shortcuts, disable the Mac OS Keyboard Shortcuts. Then when your mouse is focusing on the guest, the keyboard will be full controlled by guest.

Good luck!

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tracywang
Expert
Expert

And of course, if shortcuts is not the issue, see the "Two" computers in one in Power user's guide to dedicating USB keyboard.

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