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SmartNav3 SN# 38291

I use VMWare a lot and I have noticed, that when the mouse pointer is captured by a virtual machine hotkeys stop working. So I cannot activate/deactivate SmartNav and a I cannot click.

I am using VMWare Server Beta (latest build), guest OS is Windows 2003 Server R2. VMWare Tools are installed, and regular mouse is working fine. If I press Ctrl-Alt to release the mouse from VM, then hotkeys start working again. If I connect to the guest OS using VNC client then everything works too.

Thank you.

Can you run the SmartNAV software in the VMWare Console as well as the Host Machine.

I have installed the latest SmartNav software inside the guest VM as per your suggestion.
If I connect SmartNav device to a virtual machine using virtual USB controller it indeed recognizes it and moves a pointer inside the VM.

But things became more of a mess now.
1. The VM will need a USB controller as part of hardware config (I usually disable it, because I do not use it, and I believe the VM is more stable without it).
2. Every time I need to move the mouse in or out of guest I will need to connect/disconnect SmartNav device from a VM (using a regular mouse to get to the console's menu).
3. Usually after disconnecting SmartNav from VM it is not recognized by host anymore until I physically unplug the USB connector from the back of my computer.
4. Even if everything else worked OK, I would still need to maintain the exact same SmartNAv setup and configuration in every VM I use.

I have been thinking about what may be a problem. It could be that VMWare tries to control mouse driver directly and as SmartNav does not look like a real mouse device to the host system (SmartNav software does not operate on a device driver level) VMWare does not recognize it.

[ May 04, 2006, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Multiversal ]

The same problem seems to occur while using LogMeIn.com service to access a remote computer.

I've also tested Citrix MetaFrame, RDP and VNC and these worked fine.

[ May 05, 2006, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Multiversal ]

Applications which attempt to grab all user input and redirect it to a source other than the current desktop (VMWare, Remote Desktop, etc) may interfere with the SmartNAV hotkeys. The SmartNAV hotkeys function by inserting a filter into the windows keyboard stack which attempts to process hotkeys before they are passed to desktop applications. Any application which grabs keyboard input at a earlier stage and blocks its transmission to the desktop (which VMWare, Remote Desktop, etc are likely to do - in order for them to work properly) will prevent the SmartNAV software from recieving any keyboard input (along with other applications on the desktop).

I would not recommend installing the SmartNAV software in a guest/client virtual machine, as the performance is likely to be less satisfactory than on a physical/host machine due to USB latency and overhead. There will also be issues (as noted in the above posts) related to cursor control when changing focus to and from the client VM.

[ May 16, 2006, 04:03 AM: Message edited by: NaturalPoint - Birch Zimmer ]

Thank you very much for your explanation.