Erratic mouse pointer movement in virtual machine when using VMware Remote Console Standalone
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Erratic mouse pointer movement in virtual machine when using VMware Remote Console Standalone

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Article ID: 326181

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

  • VMware Remote Console (VMRC) Standalone is being used to connect to a virtual machine.

  • Mouse movements in the guest operating system are erratic, such as:

    • the mouse pointer jumps uncontrollably

    • the pointer occasionally gets accelerated to very fast speeds

    • the mouse pointer gets stuck in one corner of the guest operation systems screen

  • The issue does not occur with the embedded Remote Console in vSphere Client



Cause

This issue occurs when the mouse driver in the guest operating system does not properly report the differences in the mouse pointer position. 
VMRC Standalone per default uses a relative mouse mode, thus instead of directly controlling the mouse pointer in the guest OS we only respond to the mouse location differences (deltas) the guest OS mouse driver reports.

NOTE: The embedded console in vSphere Client does not support relative mouse mode, and therefore does not experience this issue.

Resolution

Should you be experiencing this problem, please ensure that:

  1. the server and client are not under load.

  2. the network has sufficient bandwidth and low latency.

  3. there are as little intermediate remoting protocols as possible between the user and the target VM to ensure a direct connection from the user's machine to the target VM.

  4. VMware Tools are installed properly in the Guest OS, including the VMware SVGA driver, and the VMware PS/2 and USB mouse drivers.

  5. the Guest has a USB controller, so it can use our USB mouse.

  6. no unusual SVGA, mouse, or cursor options were manually set in the config file.

  7. nothing in the Guest is moving the cursor on it's own. (For instance, a remote access session like VNC or RDP directly connected to the guest might do this.)

  8. "Cursor Trails" or "Pointer Trails" are not enabled in the Guest.

Furthermore,

  1. Try setting different, simpler, and smaller cursor images.

  2. Make sure that "Cursor Trails" or "Pointer Trails" aren't enabled in the Guest.

  3. Reboot the Guest OS to make sure that it isn't stuck in a software cursor mode due to a guest bug.

I some situations, the issue persists after going through these steps. Should this be the case, apply they steps listed in the workaround section of this article.


Workaround:

As a workaround, the mouse mode for VMRC Standalone to can be change to absolute mode. To make this change, find the VMRC configuration file "preferences.ini" in the "VMware" folder in the roaming AppData folder in your user profile (usually this is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\VMware\preferences.ini).

Close any open VMRC sessions, then edit the file and add the following line at its end:

mks.gamingMouse.policy = "absolute"


Save the file and start a new VMRC Standalone connection to verify the change.

To change the VMRC Standalone back to relative mouse mode, simply remove the line again from the preferences.ini.

NOTE: Some games or other applications require relative mouse mode to function properly. Setting this option will force absolute mouse mode, and can result in erratic pointer behaviour in such applications.


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