VMWare Player mouse becomes erratic

I have been experiencing a problem with VMWare Player 3.1.6

This is on a Panasonic Toughbook CF53 the Host OS is Windows XPSP3 fully updated, The Guest os is Windows XPSP3 fully updated.

It seems that randomly in the guest the mouse cursor becomes completely erratic and uncontrollable moving randomly around the screen. The mouse while uncontrollable in the guest works fine in the host. The only way to fix it is to reboot the guest machine numerous times as the problem may still be there after a reboot.

I have tried:

reinstalling the vmware guest tools.
updating the hosts's machines mouse driver.
reinstalling the host's and guests mouse driver
Changeing guests hardware accelation to one from top ( this disables mouse pointer accelaration)

None of the above works. I have been at this for days now. Anyone got any ideas on what to try next. I cannot upgrade to the next Major version of VMWare Player.

vmware-player

squareborg

Posted 2013-01-29T13:09:15.050

Reputation: 2 105

1Does this problem occur only when using the laptop's trackpad? Does it occur using an external mouse connected to the laptop? – Zac B – 2013-02-03T19:27:25.310

Have you tried reinstalling the guest OS (or creating a new VM)? My main use of a virtual machine is to run untrusted software, so malware infection seems a strong possibility. – Hugh Allen – 2013-02-04T11:55:24.137

When you were checking the mouse drivers on the guest, was the mouse listed as VMware pointing device? I've seen VMware Guest revert to PS/2 or HID mice, which means the mouse isn't using the drivers from VMware tools. – Nick – 2013-02-06T16:14:43.437

are you using a graphic card?you can try installing other gfx drivers – swapyonubuntu – 2013-02-06T20:42:07.603

Answers

Disable Write Combines in the advanced Display properties in your XP VM.

You know the Truth

Posted 2013-01-29T13:09:15.050

Reputation: 26

1Any chance of explaining what this does or why this might help? – Mokubai – 2013-09-09T17:59:52.703

After Installing the guest OS, I would install the vmware tools also, I didn't see in your notes if you did this. Player Menu: File-->Player Preferences-->Download All Components Now button. If you can't find them there you may be able to download them.

MDMoore313

Posted 2013-01-29T13:09:15.050

Reputation: 4 874

I had to undo the VMWare additions.
Edit and add to the following config-file:

Windows: %APPDATA%\VMWARE\preferences.ini

OSX: ~/.vmware/preferences

pref.motionGrab = “FALSE”
pref.motionUngrab = “FALSE”

Source: http://kasperk.it/vmware/mouse-grabungrab-vmware

Magnus

Posted 2013-01-29T13:09:15.050

Reputation: 21

It worked for me, your "mileage" may be "weary" ;) – Magnus – 2019-11-30T20:06:45.503