Mouse Not Working Inside Kali Linux VM on VMware Workstation After Updates

[Wassim Al ghali]

Many students and cybersecurity learners are experiencing an issue where the mouse cursor becomes unresponsive inside Kali Linux VMs, despite open-vm-tools-desktop being installed and active. This seems to occur after VMware or guest OS updates, breaking labs and training exercises.

• VMware Workstation version: e.g., 17.5.2 build 21581406

• Host OS: e.g., Windows 11 Pro

• Guest OS: Kali Linux 2025.x (rolling)

• open-vm-tools-desktop: latest version from Kali repo

• Steps tried: reinstalling open-vm-tools, rebooting, checking services, verifying Xorg drivers

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[Dhairya Tomar]

Wassim Al ghali Request you to update to the latest version of WS 17.6.4 and let us know if the issue still persists.

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[Nuno Gomes]

Hi there. I'm facing the same issue with the mouse pointer disappearing when I switch to the VM. I updated WS to latest version, am running the same (other) software and also performed the steps as OP.

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[RaSystemlord]

Just a possible thing to try:

Does it work if you do NOT load those Tools? Since the mouse doesn't work, there is not much to lose with not loading. You may or may not get window-resizing to work automatically. But you can change the VM computer resolution to something else and thus achieve a satisfactory resolution.

[wang yifeng]

I am facing the same problem and I try on two different computers 

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[Technogeezer]

Is 3D acceleration enabled for the VM? If so, can you try turning it off and seeing if things change?

Are you using the default desktop environment for Kali?

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Wassim Al ghali]

still not working sir

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[Wassim Al ghali]

already did

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[RaSystemlord]

I'm running Kali 2022 and Kali 2025 in parallel and cannot see anything wrong. I have Win 11 Pro Host and VMware 17.5.2. Don't remember about loading any Open Tools - probably not. Windows resizing works just fine. I do need to use Control-Alt to get into Host from Kali's with mouse cursor - but vice versa it works just directly. Copy/paste works between Kali and Host just fine (drag-drop is really irritating in Windows anyway).

The other computer has 3D Acceleration active, the other one not.

- is there a specific workflow what to try? It was said that "When VMware or guest OS updates". What does that mean, isn't that a rare incident? How do you Update VMware without a reboot of a VM anyway?
- what is the Kali Update that I could try (I don't know what exactly to try in Kali, no expertise)?

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[RaSystemlord]

As it happened, Windows Update just arrived and I ran it. Windows 11 Pro is still 24H2. 

No problems with Kali 2025 ... if this is how the problems should happen. It has KDE environment. I don't know how to tell if it has Open-Tools or not.

I also noticed that if Kali system files are updated, Kali recommends reboot for system stability.

[Dhairya Tomar]

Wassim Al ghali Request you to update to latest WS version of WS released yesterday WS 25H2 and update.

In case the issue persists, please share full support bundle of the affected VM using menu option Help->Support->Collect Support Data.

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[Andy Vargas]

Hello,

I also had this issue and resolved it by updating both VMware and the VM itself (maybe the VM update on its own would have sufficed).

Here's a YT video of the issue and how to fix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMLFXmj-s7Q

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[Ian Forbes]

Did you install this using an ISO or the prebuilt VM image from the Kali website?

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