Mike Hays - Virtualization, PowerShell, and more...

Here’s a very quick Quicktip.  Like most people, I run the vCenter Infrastructure Client (aka VirtualCenter Client, aka VIC) to manage Windows guest OSs.

To make this easier, I change the “scheme” for my mouse pointers from the default to 3D-Bronze in order to make it easier to tell if the VIC console of the guest has “captured” my mouse.  You can see in the video below the mouse cursor change from 3D-Bronze to the default used on all the Windows Server OS images I manage (and likely all the ones you manage as well).

Here’s the procedure to make this simple change:

1. Open the Control Panel on the local system (your workstation).
2. In the Control Panel, double-click on the Mouse applet.
3. In the Mouse Properties applet, click on the Pointers tab.
4. Change the Scheme to 3D-Bronze (or any other scheme were the “Normal Select” pointer isn’t white).
5. Click OK to close the Mouse Properties applet and accept the changes.

As an added bonus, this cursor change occurs for Remote Desktop and Citrix sessions as well.

Happy Virtualizing!

Mike