Making the host mouse pointer to follow the guest mouse pointer

Products

• VMware
• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article describes what to do if you want the host pointer to follow the guest pointer if the guest pointer is moved by a program running in a Windows guest. For example, if you use automated testing products, and as part of the test suite
you need to move the mouse pointer independently of user input.

In this case, when the user moves the mouse after the automated testing program runs, the pointer in the guest first snaps back to the host pointer's position. This can be confusing and make it appear that the pointer has suddenly "jumped" across the
screen.

Environment

VMware ACE 2.0.x
VMware Workstation 7.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Linux)

Resolution

To the host mouse pointer to follow the guest mouse pointer:

1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Open the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx ) file using a text editor
3. Add this line to the file
   
   vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
   
   
4. Restart the virtual machine. This configuration setting prevents the VMware Tools mouse driver from loading.