Back / Forward mouse buttons do not work in VMWare Workstation 6.5 Guest OS

Question

I am using a Logitech G9 mouse and running VMWare Workstation 6.5.3 on Vista x64. The guest OS is Win XP, and has the most current version of VMWare Tools installed. Left / right buttons and mouse wheel scrolling work fine in the guest OS, but the back / forward buttons are apparently not recognized.

I have tried installing the Logitech software inside the guest OS as well, but it still did not recognize the back / forward buttons. (I didn't really expect this to work since the guest OS doesn't actually see the mouse hardware as a Logitech G9 directly anyway.)

I vaguely remember seeing something a while back about editing the virtual machine config file to specify a 5-button mouse rather than the default 3-button setup, but I can't seem to find any specifics on how to do so in the VMWare documentation. Does anyone know if such a workaround exists, or is 5-button mouse functionality just not supported?

Answer 1

After adding usb.generic.allowHID = TRUE to the vmx file, just enable USB for that VM and then go to the Hardware Manager (guest system) and "scan for hardware changes". New USB Devices will then be recognized by the VM and after that your back/forward buttons should work without deactivating the mouse in the host system.

Answer 2

Edit the .VMX file (while VM powered off) using notepad and add the following lines:

usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

Save file and exit notepad.

Answer 3

For workstation 10 you need another line in you .vmx than the previous suggestions. Now it's:

usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"

https://communities.vmware.com/message/2328267#2328267

Answer 4

Enable all mouse buttons globally for all VMs on your machine:

Windows Host:

Add

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"

to

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation\config.ini
(C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Workstation\config.ini)

This path might be different for you, depending on how VMware is installed.

Completely restart your VM and VMWare Workstation!

---

Ubuntu Host:

Add (or create file if not available)

.encoding = "UTF-8"
mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"

to

~/.vmware/config

Completely restart your VM and VMWare Workstation!

Tested with Windows 10 Host, VMWare Workstation 15 and Ubuntu 16.04 Guest

Answer 5

It won't work directly. Because VMware only emulates 6 states with it's generic mouse. (left, right and middle mouse button, scroll wheel up, down, pressed)

But as a workaround you can use my tool I've just written in AutoIt for I really needed this function as well.

#include <Misc.au3>

$dll = DllOpen("user32.dll")

Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2)
Opt("TrayIconHide", 1)
$vm = WinWait("VMware Workstation")

While True
    If WinActive($vm) Then
        If _IsPressed("06", $dll) Then
            Send("{AltDown}{Right}")
            While _IsPressed("06", $dll)
                Sleep(1)
            WEnd
            Send("{AltUp}")
        ElseIf _IsPressed("05", $dll) Then
            Send("{AltDown}{Left}")
            While _IsPressed("05", $dll)
                Sleep(1)
            WEnd
            Send("{AltUp}")
        EndIf
    ElseIf _IsPressed("05", $dll) And _IsPressed("06", $dll) Then
        If MsgBox(1 + 262144, "Exit", "Do you really want to exit...?") == 1 Then ExitLoop
    EndIf
    Sleep(1)
WEnd

DllClose($dll)

Just compile this on your own with AutoIt or download the compiled executable from my webspace: http://jtmeyer.de/mousetool.exe This will wait for a window including "VMware Workstation" in it's Title and if any of the Thumb Mouse buttons are pressed (Code 05 + 06) the KeyCombination of Alt+Left/Alt+Right is pressed. If you press both buttons together the tool will exit if you confirm the appearing dialog box.

Answer 6

as 2018:

This is a known bug of VMWare but still not solved.

I tried all of the answers. None of them worked for windows 10 under VMWare 14.1.3

Downgrading to VMWare 12.0.1 solved my problem.

Answer 7

At 2020:

I tested on Windows 10 and VMware Player 15

I did the following to enable the back and forward button.

1. Remove the USB controller while VM is open

   go to: Player->Manage->Virtual Machine Setting remove USB controller from Hardware tab then click OK

2. Power OFF VM

3. Add below lines to .vmx file and save

    mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
   
    mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"
   

4. Start VM

5. Add USB controller after VM started

   go to: Player->Manage->Virtual Machine Setting click add button then select USB controller then click Finish Then click OK

6. Restart VM

7. Open terminal run this command:

     xev |grep -i "button"
   

8. Move the mouse to the new opened Event Tester window and click the mouse button you want to enable. If you see something at the terminal, that's mean it works.

Answer 8

Add this parameter in your VM's VMX file.

usb.generic.allowHID = TRUE

Your buttons should now work - no installation of logitech software or anything required.

Answer 9

For Windows host use AutoHotKey to change mouse button mapping:

 XButton1 :: !^+{NumpadLeft}
 XButton2 :: !^+{NumpadRight}

Then in guest OS map them back:

 !^+{NumpadLeft}  :: XButton1
 !^+{NumpadRight} :: XButton2

Answer 10

What worked in my case was changing the compatibility for the USB controller from 3.0 to 2.0 in the VM settings.