For those who use VMWare Fusion

By Johann, 21 July, 2025

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Is there a way to make the keyboard focus go to the vm directly, when you command tab into Fusion, without having to press alt tab like 5 or 6 times?

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By Daniil Gusev on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 05:55

while in the vm window, turn off quick navigation, then switch to full screen mode and back with cmd+ctrl+f

By Johann on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 08:35

Is there a way to not have it show the login items notification everytime launching Fusion??
Also whenever I try to check for updates, I get a network error.

By Igna Triay on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 12:18

As far as I know, no, there’s no way to disable that login items notification. Honestly, that was one of the reasons I ditched Fusion for Parallels. The constant popup drove me nuts, and it’s been around for years, definitely since macOS Sonoma, maybe even Ventura. Worse, VMware never fixed it back when this login bug first started, and now that Broadcom owns VMware, given their history of buying companies just to gut them or salvage a few useful parts, I don’t see them doing anything about this. And with the update server apparently gone or misconfigured, still pointing to the old VMware domain instead of Broadcom’s, you now have to manually check their site for updates, assuming they even bother to release any. Given how long this has been broken and how little effort Broadcom seems to be putting into Fusion, I wouldn’t be shocked if they quietly kill it off. Just a hunch, but the writing’s on the wall, especially if Broadcom’s track record is anything to go by.

By Chris on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 13:28

Fusion 13.6.4 was released on July 15. You can download it via the convoluted Broadcom website.

By Igna Triay on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 13:54

Given i'm no longer on fusion, just out of curiosity, what's new? Did anything get fixed? Or are things still broken, i.e, updates, login notification, etc? What about the setup of a vm with narrator in the first install phase?

By TheBlindGuy07 on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 14:09

How do we get out of the vm?
Honestly, vmware player free is so good on windows, c-g to enter, c-m to get out.
I mostly agree with and fear everything said about Broadcom, they have a terrible track record. France was certainly not happy about the inflation :)

By Igna Triay on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 14:21

Not sure about how to do this on windows, but at least on the Mac, given that I prefer command tab or control tab to work as intended in the virtual machine, the way I got out of it was by going to the desktop via the desktop command on Mac, caps lock shift D. I’m guessing in windows you could do something similar, but I’m not sure what command that would be. again, that only applies if you have the Mac host shortcuts turned off. If you have them turned on, you can use command tab to go to another application as normal.

By Chris on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 15:44

Here's the release notes I found via a Google search.
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/desktop-hypervisors/fusion-pro/13-0/release-notes/vmware-fusion-1364-release-notes.html

It appears all updates going forward will have to be manually downloaded from Broadcom.

I'm not sure anything can be done about Narrator during the initial installation process. I'm pretty sure that's a Microsoft problem. They don't include the audio drivers Fusion uses, so your best bet is using a USB audio device during that part of the setup process. I recommend doing this regardless, as it reduces audio latency.

By Daniil Gusev on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 17:24

To do this, when you are managing a virtual machine, you must press cmd+ctrl to transfer control to the host machine, and then move to another window using cmd+tab as standard.

By Chris on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 18:17

For anyone curious, Option-Tab seems to be a reliable way to get keyboard focus into the virtual machine.