[Experience] VMware｜Virtual machines can only use the mouse but not the keyboard, and the possible solutions for copying and pasting that cannot be copied and pasted with VMware-Tools installed

VMware Workstation Pro version: 16.2.4.

The vmware virtual machine can only use the mouse but not the keyboard

This problem occurs because the keyboard and mouse can only be used by one thing at a time. Just like a printer, if there is only one printer, it is occupied when one document is being printed , and the second document cannot be printed at the same time.

Usually, virtualization technology will support the switching of devices between different virtual machines and real machines, but I don’t know what’s wrong, and sometimes the technology that comes with the computer is not very good. At this time, you can install the enhanced keyboard driver provided by VMware .

Other solutions on the Internet only mentioned the settings that need to turn on or off the enhanced keyboard driver, but did not fully explain how to install this driver. When I set the virtual machine to use the enhanced keyboard driver, the virtual machine will not start normally, the driver cannot be found, and the bottom bar will report an error.

Next I will describe how to set up the virtual machine and how to install this driver separately.

1 Install the enhanced keyboard driver

This option is given when VMware is installed, so it also needs to be installed through the installer.

Refer to the official documentation for instructions: Install the enhanced keyboard driver on the Windows host-VMware Docs

Double-click the VMware installer and select Change.

Then select the enhanced keyboard driver and click Next.

Wait for the installation, and restart the computer after installation.

2 Set the virtual machine to use the enhanced keyboard driver

First shut down or suspend the virtual machine, then click "Edit Virtual Machine Settings", or enter "Virtual Machine" - "Settings" from the menu bar.

Then click "Options" in the Tab bar, and you can choose whether to enable "Enhanced Keyboard" in the lower right corner. Here, select the recommended " Use when available ". If not, it is necessary to select "Required".

Possible solution to the inability to copy and paste after installing VMware-Tools

I believe that many, many students have encountered the situation that they have reinstalled VMware-Tools countless times, restarted the virtual machine countless times, and still cannot copy and paste .

Possible cause: The VMware-Tools installed directly through VMware may not be compatible with the virtual machine version.

Refer to [Ubuntu install VMware tools] Segmentation fault (core dumped)-CSDN Blog-wild-civil

Possible solution: install via apt install .

#先删除现有的VMware
cd vmware-tools-distrib/bin #就是VMware-Tools安装目录下的bin文件夹

#然后运行
sudo ./vmware-uninstall-tools.pl #运行vmware-uninstall-tools.pl这个文件来删除现有的VMware

#最后打开终端，输入
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop

If "Unable to obtain lock xxx, the lock is being held by process xxx (unattended-upgr)" appears during apt-get, you also need to run, , and sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontenddelete sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lockthe file.

After the installation is completed in this way, it may still be impossible to copy and paste , or it can be copied at that time, but then it suddenly fails. If you can't do it anyway, just use a shared folder.

After copying a virtual machine, "This virtual machine has a processor that does not support the same features as the virtual machine that saves the virtual machine's state"

Reference: When opening the VMware virtual machine, it prompts "The functions supported by the processor of this virtual machine are different from the functions supported by the processor of the virtual machine that saves the state of the virtual machine." Solution-Lao Liang Blog

I copied the virtual machine of other machines to the computer today, and I have selected "I have copied the virtual machine", and reported this error:

Either click "Yes" or "No".

If you click "Yes", "Whether to keep the pending status" will pop up, and the options include "Keep" and "Abandon".
Select "Discard".
Click again to start the virtual machine.

If you click "No", "xxx hardware does not exist" pops up.
Close this window.
Click again to start the virtual machine.