53

I have been experimenting with VMware workstation. When I autohide the toolbar at the top, it leaves a 1 pixel sliver. While this is functional, my OCD is bugging me. Is there a way to totally hide the toolbar?

1

11 Answers 11

-6

If this is a desktop machine, you can try adjusting the positioning of your LCD monitor to shift one pixel up.

The only other way I know of is to go to "Quick Switch" mode, then go to the menu bar and select View and deselect tabs.

This will give you a screen with no borders at all, but you can still get to a menu at the top of the screen. However, you lose the quick switch ability - but it should do what you want!

3
  • 1
    Perfect!! , this works very well :D Feb 17, 2011 at 0:19
  • 1
    This answer applies only to very old versions of VMware Workstation. "Quick Switch mode" hasn't existed in a long time.
    – jamesdlin
    Oct 18, 2017 at 19:26
  • "Quick Switch" isn't available in the latest version of VMWare Workstation as @jamesdlin said, and moving a layer of pixels is, no offence, a terrible solution :/ Mar 17, 2021 at 15:35
106

Took me a little searching to find the answer to this because I didn't want to change the position of my screens. If you go to Edit > Preferences > Display > Uncheck "Show toolbar edge when unpinned in full screen" you'll be all set!

4
  • 35
    This should be accepted as the real solution. "Shifting your LCD monitor one pixel up" is just hideous.
    – Ray
    Mar 22, 2014 at 19:48
  • yes this should be accepted
    – Xin Meng
    Nov 10, 2017 at 16:22
  • 3
    It's only a half solution: when you let the mouse for a long time on top of the screen (that's often needed to make a menu appear in the guest OS), the VMware top bar appears again (even with "Show toolbar edge when unpinned in full screen" unchecked), that is annoyting when in fact you want to make the guest OS menu appear. Real solution: View > Exclusive mode, then the top bar won't appear again, until you press CTRL + ALT. I don't know if it's possible to have Exclusive mode by default for a VM.
    – Basj
    Apr 24, 2018 at 14:00
  • @Basj You could run VMs though vmware-kvm if you want to run them in be in fullscreen all the time with no UI.
    – jamesdlin
    Jun 14, 2018 at 5:15
49

For VMWare Player users, you can edit the preferences file at

%APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini

and add:

pref.vmplayer.fullscreen.nobar = "TRUE"
8
  • 8
    This worked for me. Of note: The specified path includes some hidden elements, so you cant simply browse to it (although search for VMware worked). Also of note: To get out of full screen, you need to Ctrl+Alt followed by Ctrl+Alt+Enter. Jun 27, 2015 at 5:29
  • 2
    This worked great, note do the change while VMWare Player is not running. Nov 10, 2015 at 11:19
  • 1
    This should be the accepted answer. FYI, it works with the latest VMware Workstation Player (v12).
    – dr_
    Jun 9, 2017 at 18:44
  • 1
    This solution works for me with Player 14 version 14.1.2 build-8497320 The only problem is to leave a full screen mode without a top bar. Simple ctrl+alt+enter does not work. It is needed to hit ctrl+alt first and then ctrl+alt+enter.
    – Alex
    Jul 2, 2018 at 20:29
  • 1
    Any shortcut to display the bar temporarily?
    – donkey
    Jun 26, 2019 at 18:21
21

Go fullscreen, then select View -> Exclusive Mode from the menu.

You can press the host key (default Ctrl+Alt) to get out of it.

3
  • Sweet! This is exactly what I needed for Xubuntu which has it's task bar on top. Thank you! Dec 25, 2013 at 15:06
  • 1
    this should be the accepted answer; vmware workworkstation 10 does not have the other options
    – nimsson
    Sep 8, 2014 at 13:03
  • 3
    Any way to make this setting permanent?. Nov 11, 2016 at 15:36
9

I am going to try to give a definitive (and somewhat authoritative) answer for Windows hosts.

VMware Workstation (Pro) for Windows hosts

The full screen toolbar can be completely hidden directly via the UI. On Windows, go to Edit > Preferences > Display and uncheck "Show toolbar edge when unpinned in full screen". (Doing so will write pref.fullscreen.toolbarPixels = "0" to your %APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini file.)

Entering "Exclusive Mode" also will completely hide the full screen toolbar. (Exclusive Mode additionally will force most keyboard shortcuts to go to the guest instead of allowing them to be intercepted by the host.)

VMware (Workstation) Player (and VMware Remote Console) for Windows hosts

Unfortunately, there is no UI to directly hide the full screen toolbar completely. You will need to:

  1. Quit all running instances of Player.
  2. Modify your preferences file directly and add the line:

    pref.vmplayer.fullscreen.nobar = "TRUE"
    

    The preferences file is located at %APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini. (%APPDATA% is an environment variable that typically expands to something like C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming.)

  3. Restart Player.

Some other answers have suggested that using "1" is necessary instead of "TRUE", but they are completely equivalent. Any claims otherwise are likely from experimental error.

Alternatively...

For people who want to run VMs in full screen mode all the time with no UI at all, I would recommend running them in vmware-kvm.exe, which allows switching among running VMs and the host via a configurable hotkey. See the product documentation for usage instructions. vmware-kvm.exe is included with VMware Workstation (Pro), VMware (Workstation) Player, and VMware Remote Console.

(Disclosure: I worked on the VMware Workstation, Player, and VMware Remote Console code for many years and wrote vmware-kvm.exe.)

2
  • None of the options aside from "Show toolbar edge when unpinned in full screen" (which doesn't remove the toolbar) support multiple monitors. So if you are like me and you are looking for a way to completely remove the toolbar in full screen on multiple monitors, it seems that you are out of luck. Nov 8, 2020 at 5:59
  • write new line with pref.fullscreen.toolbarPixels = "0" to your %APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini works perfectly, thanks man Apr 6, 2022 at 22:12
1

Finally found out the answer Go fullscreen the go to view ad select exclusive mode note: "ctrl+alt+enter" to exit fullscreen mode hope this helps :)

1
  • thanks, this is what I need!))
    – Dr. Mc My
    Aug 29, 2021 at 7:21
0

Press Ctrl+P, select Display, in Menu & toolbar uncheck Show toolbar edge when unpinned in full screen. Now go to full screen by pressing Alt+Ctrl+Enter. Bar is removed.

0
0

The answer eddiegrove gave was almost correct; however, there needs to be double quotations around the number 1

So just write:

pref.vmplayer.fullscreen.nobar = "1"

Then it should work.

0
0

As a matter of a fact, VMWare has installed a feature on the newest version to hide the toolbar. There is a "thumbtack icon" on the left side of the toolbar. This allows you to have the toolbar be permanently or temporarily shown.

2
  • Pinning the toolbar will show it permanently, but unpinning it will still show a sliver of the toolbar edge (unless the toolbar edge is explicitly disabled).
    – jamesdlin
    Nov 28, 2020 at 21:12
  • Yeah, tbh its kind of irritating to see that sliver but it's better than a ful bar. Nov 30, 2020 at 5:13
0

Exclusive mode brings the bar back when I press Ctrl+Alt

I found this little icon next to the toolbar auto hides it.

Solution

0

The easiest way to hide the toolbar is by clicking the thumbtack icon on the left had side once you are in full screen mode.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .