The VMware Toolbox program starts up whenever you log in to the guest OS. It offers the following features:

• the ability to cut and paste between VMs and the host OS
• automatic mouse-cursor grabbing as you move between guest and host OS windows
• easy way to attach and detach removable devices

And for Windows NT and Windows 95/98 guest operating systems only:

• convenient link to the VMware web site
• display of the name of the VM in the lower right corner

To access the menu for the VMware Toolbox, click on the VMware icon that appears next to the name of the VM. A short menu should appear. The menu options are described below.

The auto grab and auto release options of the Cursor menu of the VMware Toolbox allow you to make mouse grabbing automatic. That is, you need not use the hot-key combination to move between windows.

By default, both options are enabled after the installation VMware Toolbox. When you move the mouse cursor over an window boundary into a VM window, the VM automatically grabs the mouse cursor and keyboard focus (auto grab). When you move the mouse cursor out of the VM window, the mouse cursor and keyboard focus are automatically released (auto release).

Because these options are global, they apply to all VMs that are running.

You can enable the auto grab and auto release independently to suit your working style.

This option controls scrolling in the VM window when it shows only a portion of the screen (that is, when scroll bars are present). If scroll bars are absent, this option has no effect.

When scroll bars are present and this option is enabled, the screen will automatically scroll if you move the mouse cursor to the edge of the current view. As you continue to move the cursor, say out of the VM window, scrolling stops. Whether you can move the cursor out of the window without using the hot-key combination depends on the setting for auto release.

By default auto scroll is disabled.

This option controls whether a VM window is automatically brought to the front (top of the window stack) when it grabs the mouse cursor using auto grab. This setting has no effect if auto grab is disabled.

By default auto raise is disabled.

This option controls whether you can cut and paste between VMs and the host operating system. When copy and paste is enabled, you simply use the cut and paste key sequences that are native to each system. For example, to cut a selection from a Windows guest OS, you would use Control-X. To insert a selection in a Linux guest OS, you would move the cursor to the correct place in the Xserver window and click on the middle mouse button.

By default the copy and paste option is enabled.

A side effect of using this option is that the host's selection is changed to the VM's selection whenever the VM releases the mouse cursor. Similarly, the VM's selection is changed to the host's selection (or another VM's selection) when the VM grabs the mouse cursor.

You can move the same text to multiple windows; as you move to each OS, its clipboard is updated with the current cut or copy buffer.

This option controls whether a VM's cursor is visible while the mouse cursor is released from that VM.

The Device menu of the VMware Toolbox allows you to enable (attach) or disable (detach) removable devices. This menu option is particularly useful when you are working in full screen mode and you are running multiple VMs that may be sharing removable drives. A removable device can be a floppy drive, CD-ROM, or a parallel port device.

CD-ROM devices can be attached to multiple VMs, but the other devices can only be attached to one VM at a time.

Using the Device menu for a given VM, you can list the current removable devices by name (path). If a check appears to the left of the device, then the VM currently has access to that device. If no check appears, the device is defined for the VM but the VM does not currently have access to it (and the device may in fact be in use by another VM).

To enable (attach) a removable device, click on the device. If it is available, a check appears and the VM (let's call it VM1) can access the device. However, if another VM (say, VM2) has already attached the device, you may see a popup window with a message. You must determine which VM has the device attached, and detach the device from the other VM (VM2 in our example). Then you can return to VM1 and again click on the device in the VMware Toolbox to attach the device.

Linux Guest OS

(This feature is not available for Linux as a guest OS.)

The VMware Toolbox provides a quick link to VMware's web site. The VM must have network access for this link to work (it cannot be a standalone VM). When you select the VMware Toolbox menu option VMware.com, the toolbox starts a Web browser and requests the VMware web site.