How do I make a hotkey to activate a specific VMware Workstation VM?

Question

I'm using the latest version of VMware Workstation (11.1.0) on Windows 7 x64 and I want to be able to do a keystroke of "Ctrl + 1" to go to VM #1, "Ctrl + 2" to go to VM #2, and "Ctrl + 3" to go to VM #3.

Sounds simple right? It isn't.

On Mac OS X, achieving this functionality is trivial with VMware Fusion in combination with Spaces / Mission Control - you can simply put each VM on a separate space and then define whatever space hotkeys you want. I'm migrating from OS X and want this same functionality.

For reference, here are some potential solutions that I've tried and can verify that they don't work:

1) AutoHotkey

AutoHotkey can be used to make hotkeys like so:

^1::WinActivate, Win7(1) - VMware Workstation
^2::WinActivate, Win7(2) - VMware Workstation
^3::WinActivate, Win7(3) - VMware Workstation

These work to enter the VMs, but not to exit; Workstation will feed the "Ctrl + 1" to the VM and AutoHotkey does not take precedence, even if AutoHotkey is run as an administrator.

2) Suspend/Unsuspend with AutoHotkey

This promising post from Nick Sturgess suggests that suspending and that unsuspending AutoHotkey while the VMware window is active will fix the problem.

However, even after copying the exact code and making the necessary string modifications, I can't get it to work with Workstation.

3) Remote Desktop and/or VNC

One possible solution, if all 3 of the VMs in question were running Windows, would be to use Microsoft's Remote Desktop feature. However, one or more of the VMs that I intend to use will be running Linux.

On Linux, it is possible to just use VNC. However, VNC has considerable drawbacks when compared to the native VMware Workstation console window: there is no sound, the resolution won't automatically scale, the performance will be bad, and so forth.

Lastly, the VMs will be on 1) networks that won't be connected to the host via a bridged NIC (with the NIC disabled on the host) and 2) using a VPN without any split tunnel. So there will be no connectivity for either remote desktop or VNC in the first place.

4) A Windows Keyboard Hook

Liuk explains how to use a Windows hook to intercept keystrokes using C++ in this informative post.

However, after testing with the demo program, it seems that this method does not intercept keystrokes sent to VMware Workstation.

5) FullScreenSwitch.directKey

It seems that in VMware Workstation used to have this kind of functionality built in, as documented in this SuperUser thread.

However, VMware's documentations states that this is for VMware Workstation 5.0. I tried adding these strings to my VMX file and they had no effect, so it appears that this functionality may have been depreciated somewhere along the lines between Workstation 5 and 11.

6) PSExec

Wade Hatler mentions that he accomplishes this using PSExec to activate the appropriate AutoHotkey script on the host machine in this forum post.

This solution is questionable in that you have to keep the password of your host machine in plaintext in order to pass it to PSExec.

Regardless, this solution will not work for the reasons also described in #3 above: the VMs in question will be on 1) networks that won't be connected to the host via a bridged NIC (with the NIC disabled on the host) and 2) using a VPN without any split tunnel. So there will not be guaranteed connectivity between the host and the guest.

7) Execute a "Host" keystroke between every "Ctrl + #" keystroke

I use "Ctrl" as my VMware Workstation Host hotkey rather than the default of "Ctrl + Alt", because it is much faster to activate. Even with this optimization, I have to press and completely release Ctrl in order for input to be relinquished from a VM. Only then can I utilize my AutoHotkey hotkeys from #1 above.

This becomes problematic in the situation where I need to quickly flip through different VMs and perform a bit of work (keystrokes) on each one. The amount of keyboard input in order to switch to each VM is essentially doubled, so this is not an adequate solution.

8) Use the "Host + Left/Right Arrow" hotkey and/or VMware-KVM.exe for cycling functionality

This is problematic in that when I have 10 or more VMs open at a time, rotating through all of them becomes incredibly cumbersome and inefficient.

9) Programs that emulate OS X Spaces / Mission Control

Windows programs such as Dexpot, Desktops, and Virtual Dimensions all allow Spaces-like functionality on Windows. However, these 3 programs in particular all have the same problem that AutoHotkey has - the hotkeys to activate a particular desktop are preempted by VMware workstation and not passed to the host machine.

Answer 1

The answer below, while correct for most products, does not work for VMware or other products that take priority control of the keyboard.

It turns out that the current version of VMware installs a keyboard handler in Windows, that when VMware has the focus, intercepts with priority all keyboard keys and does not pass practically any to the host, except for Ctrl-Alt-Del if Enhanced Virtual Keyboard is not enabled.

Methods that worked in previous versions, such as the pass-through of all Ctrl+Alt combinations, have for some unknown reason now been omitted in VMware.

Now add to this the usage in the VM of a blocking VPN server, which blocks out the entire local network, leaveing us only the host keyboard and mouse as possible mechanisms, to now have a real big problem.

I can see only two solutions :

1. Mouse oriented: Use a virtual desktops product such as Dexpot that has a graphical console so desktops are switched with a click,
2. Keyboard oriented: Requires switching from VMware to VitualBox or Hyper-V who might let the host intercept some more keyboard events (experimenting is required).

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A solution under Windows is to create multiple virtual desktops and assigning each VM to its own virtual desktop.

The following free virtual desktop products support global hotkeys :

Dexpot
The most feature-complete. See this how-to article on using mouse gestures and hotkeys.

Desktops
Created by the Microsoft Fellow Mark Russinovich, it should have the best integration with Windows.

Virtual Dimension
I have no personal experience with it.