How To Fix Windows 2008 Mouse Lag in VMware Virtual Center
Recently I installed a couple of Windows 2008 R2 servers. After the installation, I suffered from the classic symptoms of Vmware tools not being installed. I had checked and all of the drivers installed, so I decided to check the Vmware KB and found this KB article #1011709. The article explained that poor mouse tracking performance was due to Windows 7 or Windows 2008 server installing the wrong video driver.
By default Windows 2008 or Windows 7 installs the XPDM driver which is the Windows XP/2003 Driver Model when the Vmware tools are installed. The Vmware tools drivers install into the “C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers” folder. So the fix is to update the drivers to the WDDM or Windows Display Driver Model.
How to fix it:
- Update to ESX 4.0 Update 1
- Open “Device Manager” -> “Display Adapter
- Right click on “Standard VGA Graphics Adapter” and select “Update Driver Software”
- Click on “Browse my computer for driver software” and find the directory of “C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video”
- Once it is installed you will need to reboot
How to fix it without ESC 4.0 Update 1:
When installing the Vmware tools deselect the drivers included with ESX 4.0. During the install select custom or modify in the installer and then deselect the SVGA (XPDM) driver.
Note: Make sure the virtual machine hardware is version 7. If you end up with a black screen, raise the video to 32MB in virtual center.
How to video:
February 5th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Good to known !
It’s also work on ESX 4.1
May 25th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Thank you so much ! What a difference.
July 1st, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Thanks for the fix. Just what I needed for ESXi 4.1 Update 1
October 25th, 2011 at 7:24 am
i got the same cursorlaggs in windows xp sp3 since i installed a new original win xp sp3 copy.
but its not from the start, it begins to lagg after a couple of minutes and it can be totaly fixed by rebooting.
any idea about this one?
October 25th, 2011 at 7:27 am
It all boils down to the latest drivers and forcing the correct drivers. A suggestion is to turn off video acceleration in the display advanced properties. This will force the video drivers to not offload video acceleration to the emulated video card. I know that it’s fixed problems in the past… Keep me updated.
November 30th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Thanks, man. Ran in to this problem today and this fixed it!
January 3rd, 2012 at 5:48 am
Thanks, resolve an issue on about 50 of my servers.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:09 am
It works for esx 4.1. Thank you.
February 8th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Works with ESXi 5.0–thanks!