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greylupi
Contributor
Contributor

Caps Lock Issues With Upgrade

Good day,

I updated, then tried re-installing the software. Caps is acting weird.

I will type anything and it will be in lower case. *Press CAPS LOCK" and text does change to upper case; however, it will not revert back to lower case when pressing CAPS LOCK again.

Even weirder is when i keep a keypress held down it will pop in a lower case letter randomly (i.e.: DDDDDDDDDDDdDDDDDDdDDDDDDDDDDDDDd)

Is there a way to revert to a previous version of workstation ? or any fix for this ?

Thank you.

47 Replies
kstatinet
Contributor
Contributor

Same exact issue on my Thinkpad T490. I noticed your post only after I posted mine.

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greylupi
Contributor
Contributor

So the only fix I've found to this for now is reverting back to a previous version. The link is below:

Download VMware Workstation Pro

Cheers

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kstatinet
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you. I just tried both Downloads options.

Does not work for me. I receive the following message: "This product installer doesn't support downgrades".

Yesterday, I upgraded to 15.5.5 build-16285975

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Mits2020
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

If the 15.5.x installers don't allow downgrading, then the only way is to uninstall 15.5.5 (+ reboot) and install the old version (+ reboot). It is advisable to disable Shared Folders from your guests, and in case 15.5.5 has a new Tools version (I don't know, I didn't try 15.5.5 yet) and you installed them, remove them too before uninstalling 15.5.5.

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Mits2020
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

On second thoughts, unless you absolutely cannot work without Caps Lock control in the guest, you might consider living with 15.5.5 and waiting until VMware produces a fix - judging from recent posts there are also problems with the NumLock key and my guess is that as we speak they are working around the clock for a solution.

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kstatinet
Contributor
Contributor

i agree. the hassle of reinstalling software & vms outweighs waiting. hopefully, it will be a quick turnaround on their part.

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kstatinet
Contributor
Contributor

read the entire thread  about caps lock issue in the older version of VMWare Workstation Pro.

they didn't fix it for 3 month after being reported and then suggested to customers to downgrade.

this sucks. why to release buggy software in a first place and decide it is not a priority for them to release an update.

i don't trust vmware "working around the clock" to fix this. at least, i did not see comments from the dev team on that.

thanks vmware for wasting customers time on reinstalling vms.

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You shouldn’t need to rebuild VMs if you downgrade, the same as you wouldn’t need to re-type all your documents if you downgraded Word.


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elameno
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here.  Quite annoying. 

WhiteKnight
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Here, too. It's currently impossible to work with the guest.

I also noticed that it takes quite a long time for VMware Workstation to show the program window after starting VMware Workstation. At first I wasn't sure whether I actually had started the program.

I took the liberty to e-mail a support file with full debug logging enabled to Daris.

Please provide a fix ASAP. It's currently impossible to run a Windows 10x64 guest on Windows 10x64 host.

Here's some more information:

With the recent update to VMware Workstation 15.5.5, the enhanced keyboard driver seems to give trouble on Windows 10x64.

In Windows 10x64 guests, the modifier keys (ALT, SHIFT, NUM-LOCK) are hanging. They seem to be constantly pressed, rendering using the guest OS impossible.

I always have set my Windows OS settings in a way to give a beep sound when one of the modifier keys is pressed. This setting makes me notice when I accidentally press the CAPS-LOCK key, for instance. So, currently, running a guest, I get constant beeps, which is very annoying. Here is a screenshot of my Windows 10 accessibility settings attached. It's in German, but from the position of the highlighted items you may conclude the corresponding English settings. You may find that page at: Windows Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard:

Accessibility Settings.png

Due to the modifier keys being permanently pressed by the enhanced keyboard driver, Windows 10x64 in the guest suggests to activate the keyboard mouse. Please refer to the following screenshot. It's in German too, I'm afraid:

Modifier keys.png

In one of the VMs the virtual audio device actually crashed. See this image, depicting the error message:

Audio.png

Pressing any of these keys doesn't seem to have any effect. The NUM-LOCK LED doesn't toggle.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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WhiteKnight
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

It looks like the error is intermittend, at least in one of my guest machines. After running the VM for a while and dismissing the Keyboard Mouse confirmation message, I seem to be able to work with that particular guest.

While the numerical keypad still doesn't work, the beeping has stopped and I seem to be able to work with the VM (except for not being able to input numerical values using the keypad).



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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kstatinet
Contributor
Contributor

yeah.. downgraded to 15.5.2 problem solved.

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justaguy2
Contributor
Contributor

Temporary solution for Ubuntu guest which worked for me was just disabling the Caps Lock key all together with this

setxkbmap -option caps:none

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DrJfrost
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same problem on Manjaro OS seems I will have to downgrade too :s

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altae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Same issue here, once activated caps lock cannot be deactivated again. The num lock bug, the caps lock bug, the sound bug: It seems, VMWare was so excited about their new version and the fact that it's now compatible with Microsoft's Hyper-V that they forgot to test anything else. 😉

Please VMWare, fix those issues asap!

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GDD1075
Contributor
Contributor

Unfortunately I am having a guest Caps Lock issue also.

In my case I installed the Workstation 15.5.5 update after having read the release notes which indicated a fix for having Hyper-V enabled and still having the ability to use VMware.

Still, and I am guessing at this point in time that my hardware is not somehow be capable, after enabling Hyper-V and running it I came back and tried to run any of my previous guest configurations only to get an error about Hyper-V and hardware followed the broken pipe -14 issue I have come across here (however those two errors were worded exactly)..

So it was off to Turn Windows features on and off > disable Hyper-V > gpedit > Disable Device Guard > still no running of VMware guests without error > reboot host > gpedit > set Device Guard GPO to Not Configured > reboot host > VMware guest now booting again.

I am trying to complete a Uni project here and downloaded the latest Windows 10 English International ISO using IE11 > F12 (Developer Options) > User Agent String set to Apple (Safari iPad) which allows for version selection on installation.

Install Windows 10 in fresh guest configuration and screen flickering and general nutting out aside, with clean install of Windows 10 completed and VMware Tools installed directly afterward, get to login screen with the Caps Lock indicator flashing on an off enough to generate an epileptic fit (possible slight over exaggeration) and once Caps Lock repeatedly pressed it ends up stopping meaning lowercase selection achieved to start entering password ... then once logged into the guest it seems I am getting the same issue as others whereby the Caps Lock seems to have a mind of its own ... as a simple example ... try to enter in Windows -> Search -> DXGIAG and end up getting DxDiAg

Should note that I am editing my .vmx file (required for my Project) after a clean Win 10 and VMware Tools install as well - I apply the following settings in the grand scheme of trying to reflect as much host information as possible and enable nested virtualization. Having used all of these settings before I don't think they would be the root cause of the issues a lot of people seem to be indicating with 15.5.5:

SMBIOS.reflectHost = "TRUE"

SMBIOS.noOEMStrings = "TRUE"

smbios.addHostVendor = "TRUE"

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"

vpmc.enable = "TRUE"

vhv.enable = "TRUE"

mce.enable = "TRUE"

vhu.enable = "TRUE"

devices.hotplug = "FALSE"

Although the testing I am doing in VMware is only part of my overall project, I AM DISAPPOINTED that I, like others, will need to carry out a complete 15.5.5 uninstall and rollback to 15.5.2 which worked perfectly well in conducting the exact same experimentation only a day prior to said 15.5.5 update install. I simply needed to complete the experiment one more time to record video and include for submission and well, the rest is history. This is a setback so lesson learned, don't update in the middle of anything important..

Thanks for the hassle VMware - rant over

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Thanks for the detailed reports, everyone.  We are actively working on this issue which (so far) seems to affect VMs running in Workstation 15.5.5 on Windows hosts, where those same VMs worked correctly in Workstation 15.5.2 on the same host.

I am not yet aware of any workaround, so for now I would recommend that affected users downgrade to Workstation 15.5.2 again.  You will need to first uninstall Workstation 15.5.5​ (either through Control Panel or by running the Workstation setup program again), and then download Workstation 15.5.2 and install it.  (It is not possible to do an in-place downgrade from Workstation 15.5.5 back to Workstation 15.5.2; You must uninstall Workstation 15.5.5 first.)

Edit: see banackm​'s post for a workaround: Re: Caps Lock Issues With Upgrade

--

Darius

d4rckh
Contributor
Contributor

It's not happening only on windows guests, in my case it happens only in Linux guests, everything is fine in windows guests, except the caps lock light on my keyboard. Everything happened after upgrading

Will my VM save (including subnets, networks, etc) if I downgrade by reinstalling VMware workstation Pro?

I don't want my IPs to change after I reinstall

I should mention my host is windows 10

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Mits2020
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

There is a feature In the Virtual Network Editor where you can Export (and then Import) your network settings as described in Using the Virtual Network Editor

However, please wait for a Moderator to verify that this feature works across previous versions and 15.5.5

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