VMware Fusion 8 and Windows 7 64bit

By Luke L, 11 June, 2016

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all,

This is my first time posting in the forum. I am stoked to be a member here! :)

Anyways, I have an issue with Vmware Fusion 8. I created a virtual machine and can't seem to interact with it. I checked on the forum here and found instructions for version 4 I believe.

I click control+command+f for full screen, then VO+shift+space to click the mouse, and also disabled the Mac host keyboard checkbox in the keyboard and mouse tab in preferences.

Every time I do this, Voiceover continues to speak and I'm still interacting with the Mac side. I know the virtual machine is up because I heard Jaws talking and the Windows noises that occur when I click letters on the keyboard. (I took a disc image of my hard drive and imported it that way using a utility designed by VMware, so it is legal).

So, what am I doing wrong? I thought the settings I had set wouldn't be an issue. I thought I had to turn off VO but I'm reading otherwise.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Luke

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Comments

By shuteye on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

I've been having some problems with fusion 8 as well. Your answer involves putting the thing in full screen mode, then setting focus over the area to the right of the tool bar, and not performing any voiceover commands while using windows. Speaking of which... anyone had luck installing jaws 16 on a fusion VM? I've tried on two different macs and the jaws install just makes that clicking sound all day :) what gives?

By peter on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

I don't use a MAC, but if you hear a clicking sound that keeps going during a JAWS install my experience (at least on Windows) is that usually a UAC dialog has popped up. This is a pop up notification asking if you really want to have some part of the installer run and/or permission to run with administrator privlidges. Generally you just have to find this window and hit OK or Yes to allow the program to run.

Hope that helps.

--pete

By UndergroundRiver on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

Hi,
I don't know how to explain what I do to get focus in the VM, but I am just writing to ask you to please describe more how you imported your VM from your old PC.
I have two old laptops with software I want, but I don't feel like installing it all when importing the PC into a VM would be nicer.
Then I could have all those PCs running on the Mac and sharing documents.
I downloaded vCentre Converter, but it seems to be unusable with JAWS and Window-Eyes.
So just curious how you do that.
Thanks.

By Carlos Taylor on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

First, remember that on a Mac keyboard, the option key passes through as the alt key in Windows and the command key passes through as the windows key. I usually try pressing option tab (alt tab to the guest OS) to try to cycle through any open windows. Sometimes pressing command r (windows r to the guest OS). This should bring up the run dialog. I just do this to get focus, then press escape to exit the window and begin any windows tasks. I have the full apple keyboard with the numeric keypad. The 0 on the numeric keypad acts as the jaws key or NVDA key or insert key for Window-Eyes. Remember to have the numbed commander off for this to work. I hope this helps, but I never go into full screen mode in fusion.

By Carlos Taylor on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

Another thing I've done to get the proper focus to Windows instead of the Mac in fusion is to use VoiceOver to access the menu bar, then go to the windows menu. Go down the menu to something that is checked, and press enter. I an't remember the name of the window that is checked, I'll have to look when I get home.

By UndergroundRiver on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 06:10

The name is probably whatever you called your VM.
Yes, I use the option/alt tab key as well and also never use full screen.
I really wish VMWare would add a shortcut key to toggle focus from guest to host.
It shouldn't matter if we are in full screen or not and what control in the VM window the VO cursor is on.
I wish there was a way to get the trackpad focused inside the guest so I could use it if needed.
Anybody had luck doing that with a regular mouse instead of Apple's trackpads?
I mean Window-Eyes will actually read what the mouse is on.
I know how to move it with the keyboard, but just would like to use the real mouse sometimes.
If I use the import process from my old PC, I'll post about it.
Thanks for all the cool info.

By Jordie Howell on Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 06:10

Hi everyone, I used to run vm fusion 7 however have just upgraded to fusion 8 belatedly. It seems that when I choose my win7 option, I can't find where to put the product key before installing a new vm. Any ideas where that setting is? Thanks, Jordie