First I thought if it might be the single physical port that has issues with the mouse pointer, but I found that it's always the monitor that has the main window it its taskbar on the host. If I move the VMware window to monitor 1 and apply the 3 monitor layout, then it's the monitor 1 having the issue. Same for monitor 2 or 3.
Then I just added another 4th monitor (!) for the main window in order to be able to have at least a 3 monitor setup inside the VM. That lead to other issues, now the alignment of the pointer is mismatching, it always clicks in a different location than it is displayed, not usable at all.
Then beside all that, the button to apply different multi-monitor layouts sometimes disappears after all these tests, then I need to shutdown the VM, close Workstation and start again. After all, not usable with multiple monitors.
Original Message:
Sent: Jul 09, 2025 04:29 AM
From: BUK GUIL
Subject: 17.6.3: Multi monitor layout, mouse pointer not working
Workstation on Windows 11 host with Linux guest:
I'm trying this since more than 13 years now and the issue is still the same with workstation 17.6.3, I tried with many different Windows versions, Linux versions and different hardware.
On Linux I'm using open-vm-tools 13.0.0.
Moving the mouse pointer from one screen to the other was always hiding the mouse pointer for a while. It feels like the mouse pointer leaves the VM just between the 2 virtual screens. Right now with this version, it is even worse. It does not unhide automatically. The mouse pointer disappears after moving to the next screen and does not re-appear. Only clicking somewhere on the new screen makes it re-appear. This is very annoying.
I found this issue in many other threads. I already updated all Intel graphics drivers on Windows to the very recent version. I tried exclusive mode. I tried 2, 3, 4 - monitor setups. I tried "Optimize mouse for games". Nothing solved it.