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I have a Linux Mint host and a Windows 7 Pro guest OS in Vmware Player 12 with VMware additions are installed.

Each time the mouse and the keyboard are "grabbed" by the virtual machine, at the moment of grabbing the numlock remains on, however the vm disables the numlock (light) in my keyboard when the keyboard is "ungrabbed". When the mouse is hovered in the host os, the light of the numlock is off but the keys work as if it is on.

Has anyone else had the same problem? This is very frustrating as I use the guest os and the host very often back and forth.

The same problem here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/network-classroom-management/102744-vmware-numlock-num-lock-off-num-lock-num-lock-off.html

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-virtualization-and-cloud-90/vmware-and-numlock-4175489397/

Journeyman Geek
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Kristof Tak
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1 Answers1

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The VM's BIOS is where you need to change this behavior. Unfortunately VMware Player does not allow you to choose to boot into the BIOS via the GUI. See this accepted answer to a different question for a method to do so by modifying the .vmx file.

Once you're in, on the Main tab, select Keyboard Features, then set NumLock to either On or Auto (presumably follows host machine's NumLock state).

Community
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foo
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  • I already did this. You can get into the boot by pressing F2 instantly after the VM is up. Set the NumLock to `Auto` but the behavior remains... – Kristof Tak Mar 01 '16 at 22:06
  • I tested using VMware Player on a _Windows_ host, setting NumLock to On. It worked as expected. Try that instead? If it doesn't work it may be something specific to the Linux Player. Also, I just noticed "hovered" in the original question. This seems to be outside the standard expected functionality. What happens if you actually click into the guest OS? – foo Mar 01 '16 at 22:16
  • This won't work if the OS uses EFI to boot. There is no option there. – Softlion Aug 31 '20 at 10:48
  • I confirm this doesn't solve the issue. Set to On, while I'm in the VM BIOS, my numlock was still on. During the Linux boot process, numlock switched to off. The problem lies somewhere else. I have tried to change the behaviour in the Linux WM settings but it's not that either. (VMWare WS Player 16) – RedGlyph Sep 09 '21 at 15:33
  • This did it for me (with lightdm): https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/375920/numlock-on-startup-on-linux-mint-18-2 – RedGlyph Sep 09 '21 at 15:43