Quick Note: Mouse Jumps Around in VMware Workstation

I just upgraded a testing machine to Windows 10 1909. And installed VMware Workstation 15 latest version on the testing machine. Somehow the mouse jumps around in VMware Workstation when the mouse pointer is grabbed by a VM. This is very annoying. I only observed this issue when run VMware Workstation in remote desktop session. I didn’t see the same issue when I run a VM on a local computer.

The reason is the testing machine has WDDM graphic driver installed. You can disable WDDM graphic driver in remote desktop session by modifying group policy.

  1. Open group policy editor by following command:
gpedit.msc
  1. Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> All Settings
  2. Disable the setting: Use WDDM graphics display driver for Remote Desktop Connections.
Disable WDDM graphics display driver.
  1. Reconnect the remote desktop session.

Please refer to following VMware KB to understand more about WDDM.

WDDM and XPDM graphics driver support with ESX, ESXi, Workstation and Fusion (1016770)

It’s not clear why the WDDM driver caused the problem. I think the reason probably because WDDM gives benefit to use software and hardware acceleration both. Maybe my testing VM’s physical host doesn’t have hardware acceleration capability. But the mouse jumps around in VMware Workstation due to the driver switching between the acceleration capabilities.

I also posted few articles regarding mouse issue in virtualization environment for your reference.

Mouse Cursor Disappeared in Remote Desktop in mRemoteNG

VMware Remote Console Freeze or Black Screen