Switching terminals under VMWare Fusion

[John Nielsen]

On Wednesday 12 March 2008 04:37:44 pm Alexander Sack wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Alexander Sack <pisymbol at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > Hello Everydoy:
> > I apologize if this isn't exactly the right place but I'm out of
> > options! I've posted on the Fusion community website up on vmware.com
> > but am still lost.  I'm running 7.0-RELEASE under VMWare Fusion on a
> > MBP/Leopard ( 10.5.1).  I've installed the vmware-tools port as well
> > as the tools shipped with Fusion and made some edits to accommodate
> > 7.0-RELEASE.  All is well minus the fact that either the ALT key or
> > some other issue is preventing me from switching terminals (ALT-F1,
> > F2, etc.).  Has anyone seen this problem before?  If you run
> > Workstation or Fusion have you seen any issues with switching
> > terminals?
> >
> > Any pointers would be much appreciated!
> >
> Btw, the reason why I say its the handling of the ALT key is that I
> can't get into kdb (ALT-CTLR-ESC, etc.).  This is really frustrating!
> -aps

I just happened to read this from a Workstation VM so I played around with 
it a bit. The reason ctrl-alt keystrokes don't work is that they never 
get to the VM. VMware uses them for its own hotkey combos: ctrl-alt = 
release mouse/keyboard, ctrl-alt-enter = toggle full-screen, 
ctrl-alt-right = next running VM, etc. I went into the options for VMware 
(on the host, Windows in my case) and changed the hotkey to 
ctrl-alt-shift. It didn't take effect immediately, but once I paused my 
VM, closed VMware and started it back up again I was able to use ctrl-alt 
combos in my VM. That includes switching to a virtual terminal from X, 
switching workspaces in xfce (ctrl-alt-left and right), etc.

JN