Input Tab

Choose: Edit > Preferences > Input

To direct input to the virtual machine, Workstation grabs input from the keyboard and the mouse so all keystrokes, mouse moves, and button clicks go to the virtual machine.

By default, pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter sends input to the virtual machine and places it in full screen mode. While in full screen mode, if you press Ctrl+Alt+Enter, the virtual machine returns to window mode.

You can change the following behavior by using the preferences editor:

•	Keyboard and Mouse Section

•	Cursor Section

If you encounter problems with grabbing and ungrabbing input, see Issues When Grabbing and Ungrabbing Input.

Keyboard and Mouse Section

The settings in this section of the tab affect how the guest operating system starts grabbing input:

•	Select Grab keyboard and mouse input on mouse click if you want Workstation to grab input the first time you click your mouse cursor in the virtual machine window. The first click in the display is not sent to the virtual machine.

•	Select Grab keyboard and mouse input on key press if you want Workstation to grab the keyboard and mouse input on the first keystroke in the virtual machine display. The first keystroke is sent to the virtual machine.

 

Note If you select Grab keyboard and mouse input on key press, you cannot use the normal application and system accelerator key sequences when the virtual machine display is active.

Cursor Section

The settings in this section of the tab affect how the guest operating system releases the cursor so that you can again start using the host computer. These settings can take effect only when VMware Tools is running in the guest operating system.

To change the way Workstation releases input back to the host and to change the way your cursor behaves:

•	Select Ungrab when cursor leaves window if you want to return input to the host whenever your mouse cursor leaves the virtual machine display.

•	Select Hide cursor on ungrab so that the cursor is no longer visible in the virtual machine display after input is transferred back to the host. This option makes it easier to keep track of your active cursor if you have multiple virtual machines open at the same time.

•

Select Grab when cursor enters window if you want Workstation to grab the keyboard and mouse input whenever your cursor enters the virtual machine window. The first keystroke and mouse click are sent to the virtual machine. The mouse pointer is grabbed only when Workstation has focus (is the active application).

 

Note If you release the mouse pointer by pressing a hot-key combination, you must click inside the virtual machine window for Workstation to start grabbing input again.

Issues When Grabbing and Ungrabbing Input

When working with grab and ungrab, you might encounter the situations described in the following table.

 

Table 1 1. Issues with Grabbing and Ungrabbing Input

Situation	Explanation
Pressing Ctrl+Alt to release the mouse and keyboard causes a laptop to go into suspend mode.	Workstation uses Ctrl+Alt to release the mouse and keyboard. Some laptops use this same key combination to suspend the host machine. In these cases, try using Ctrl and Alt on the right-hand side of the keyboard. Workstation recognizes both sets of Ctrl and Alt keys, while laptops usually recognize only left-hand keys for the suspend function.
After you press Ctrl+Alt to release the mouse and keyboard, the keyboard does not function properly within the host operating system.	Sometimes Workstation causes the host operating system to lose keyboard events. This causes the host operating system to think that keys are being pressed when they are not. If you notice strange keyboard behavior in the host operating system after leaving Workstation, press and release each of the modifier keys individually, including Ctrl, Shift, and Alt. This should release the keys that are stuck in the host operating system. If this does not work, then try other special keys, including the Windows, Esc, and Caps Lock keys.
Pressing Ctrl+Alt does not release the cursor.	It could be that the modifier keys are mapped under X (in Linux) in unexpected ways. For example, the left Ctrl key could be mapped to Caps Lock or an Alt key is generating special keystrokes. Run xmodmap -- km -- kp and submit a support request at www.vmware.com/requestsupport that includes the output.