Windows 8.1 in a VMWare Workstation 10 guest's mouse is missing, but only sometimes

Question

I have VMWare Workstation 10 running on a Windows 7 machine, hosting a k guest OS.

Before upgrading to WS 10 I was using version 9, and the Win8 guest OS ran without difficulty or error conditions.

Since upgrading and installing the most current VMWare Tools inside the guest after upgrading to version 10, there are circumstances where

• the mouse pointer is not visible;
• the mouse position appears stuck at a screen location which is not
  the center of the virtualized display; and
• mouse click and scrolling events still get processed.
• Once this begins happening I have to reboot the host machine to get it to stop.

(VMWare Tools 9.6.1 build-1378637 is what the WS 10 software installed)

The problem seems to correlate with whether the mouse is captured during Win 8.1's bootup process, before control is passed to the login screen. If I explicitly click the mouse into the guest OS and move it slowly around while the system is booting, then I see the mouse after clicking to lift the first screen and expose the password prompt, and there is never a problem within the guest.

If I don't do this during bootup, there is no mouse pointer, with the symptoms listed above.

I have tried removing and reinstalling VMWare tools, and the other steps published for "mouse problems" from VMWare's chaotic troubleshooting database. The problem persists.

Is there a setting in the virtual machine's configuration which could prevent this behavior?

Solution 1

It seems to be a bug. I just updated to 10.0.2 and updated tools. Now my mouse does not click, left nor right button. I can see mouse over but not click. Running 8.1 Enterprise windows as guest. Host is Windows 7 Ultimate.

Fix I use is enter VM settings, select USB, switch from USB 3.0 compatible to USB 2.0 compatible. It makes sense since my mouse fob is USB 2.0 and my Windows 7 laptop is USB 2.0. Yet its still a bug, imho.

Good luck.

Solution 2

the problem is caused by a settings on the host. If the Host is a Win 8.1 sometimes there is a problem with DPI Sceling Features.

A workaroung could be: Find the vmware.exe on the Host, right click, Properties, Compatibility, "Disable display scaling on high DPI Settings".

Close and re-open the VMware Workstation.

It's solved for me

Comments

[jlehtinen]

Sounds to me like a bug, not a configuration issue. I would open a ticket with VMware.

[Rob Perkins]

It always seems more difficult to get VMWare to recognize a bug than almost anyone. And those support tickets cost some money...

[MDMarra]

@RobPerkins assuming this is for professional use, you have a support contract, correct? Leverage that. If this is not for professional use, you've asked on the wrong site :)

[Rob Perkins]

It's for professional use (I'd be using VirtualBox otherwise!) There is no support contract. But for whatever it's worth, I used a paid incident to examine the problem and they went away after a full uninstall/reinstall of the VMWare software. So I'm thinking of that as a dry well at this point.

[Rob Perkins]

I should clarify: Paid VMWare support was no help. They went away after a full uninstall/reinstall but the problem remains.

[Rob Perkins]

Yes; it seems to be immune to those sorts of changes. (Could you be more specific about where and how to look for these?)

[BigCAT41]

disregard right clicking on the VM image and hitting edit settings it doesn't seem to be there. As for the second option if you double click and open the VM there is an icon with a USB and Wrench for removable devices. Did you also try the following: can you RDP into the machine if that is enabled? If so did you try removing the VMTools and re installing them.And lastly with the console open go VM-GUEST-Install/Upgrade VM Tools, did you try that and having that pop up in the VM?

[Rob Perkins]

yes, all of those things, except RDP. Like I wrote, mouse events are there, just no pointer and no response to mouse translation signals.

[Rob Perkins]

That did it. I can't believe that that was all it was.

[Austio]

Thanks avalon. That did the trick, spent hours trying to fix this.

[vbence]

Did the trick. This answer deserves more attention.

[Pilsator]

Definitely. Solved the problem on my Win 8.1 host. Weird flickering around with the mouse etc. Sucked completely. Now it's gone and I am happy again! Thumbs up man

[Illuminati]

In my case it was the "desktop sharing" caused the issue. One it is disabled, e'thing was back to normal.

[Sawan]

WORKED FOR ME, Host is win 10, vm is win 7 Thaaaaaaaaaaaanks a lot