When I work remotely and remote desktop from my WinXP machine to a Win7 box everything is fine. When I launch a virtual machine from within that Win7 box and use my mouse pointer it is invisible inside the VM. If I hover over the title bar area of the running VM my mouse pointer will turn into a hand and I can guess where my pointer is at from there but it doesnt change (into resize or a textbar for example).
113 Answers
Easy way to solve this weird behavior with text cursors in some editors.
In the Virtual Machine go to "Control Panel" -> "Mouse Properties" -> "Pointers" tab ->
Once there select the "Windows Black(system scheme)" profile.
As @adam0101 pointed out in comments you can select another theme like Aero.
4You could try to disable hardware acceleration in Windows 7, if it works in the VM.
Ensure also that VMware Tools for Windows Guests are installed.
Go into the advanced system properties and ensure that the "show shadows under mouse pointer" is selected.
As strange as it seems, solved my problem.
I too have had this problem, the only way I could find round it was to use remote desktop to remote into the virtual machine itself directly, either that or go to and setup a free account and use that to login to the virtual machine directly. For some reason mouse pointers dont seem to roam very well between three locations.
One thing to try though, have you tried making your virtual machine full screen on the pc you are connecting to ?.
Another option is to use a lan enabled kvm switch, this is different to using remote desktop in that the signal for the mouse / keyboard is fed directly into the keyboard and mouse sockets on the pc at the other end instead of being virtualised by remote deskptop, so the mouse pointer would appear in the VM the same as it does when viewing it at the pc itself, they are not overly cheap though, although you can prob find a second hand one on ebay.
Make sure vmware tools app is installed on the VM. If that does not help, maybe try changing your remote control app and see if that helps.
I encountered this issue this morning on a Windows 8.1 VM. I will say this is remote access through Citrix to the Machine. To resolve it I Opened Mouse Properties > Pointer Options and selected Display pointer trails setting the distance to short to minimize the effect of the trails.
2I periodically have this issue crop up when I launch a VM and discovered I can solve it by entering and exiting unity mode.
4Try disabling "Accelerate 3D graphics" option. (Virtual Machine Settings/Hardware/Display/3D Graphics).
Disabling this option should disable direct access to GPU, remote desktop emulates a graphics card instead of using real hardware. A bug on graphics drivers (real one) may be the reason for invisible mouse pointer which may not exist on emulated graphics card drivers. Updating drivers may also solve the problem.
1We have had the same problem, but specifically around not having a mouse pointed for the legal disclaimer before logging in into win 7. Once we get past that using the keyboard, the pointer appears.
The resolution for us was that the base image was set to 1920 x 1080 screen res.
This issue only occurred when we used monitors that had the same res as the session didn't do a rescale. Changing the base image to 1440 x 900, fixe the issue.
Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Input, for Optimize mouse for games option select Never.
Worked for me.
Source:
In my case the issue was with remote desktop connection manager tool I was using . I noticed when I use mstsc in full screen I did not have this missing mouse pointer issue. so it was typically a monitor resolution and rescale problem.
I fixed mine by changing mouse pointer settings of the remote system to use "Windows Black (system scheme)" and "enabling pointer shadow"
To do this; Right click on the desktop>Personalize>Themes>Mouse Properties
My issue showed up when i updated my Hosts to 5.5.0 8 update 3 and then updated my client. the mouse disappeared, after countless minutes/hours trying to get the cursor back, I threw in the towel and uninstalled the client and sifting through the regisrty and folders remving any hint of vShereCleint 5.5.0.8 update 3e. I then downloaded a new installer from vmWare and installed it. Disappearing mouse curser issue is resolved.
You go to System Preferences in your OS /Security&Privacy/Privacy(tab)/Accessibility(on the list)/Allow the apps below to control your computer/check WMWare Have Fun :) Cheers!
