You can use keyboard shortcuts to interact with Workstation Pro and with virtual machines. Most of the available keyboard shortcuts for Workstation Pro are listed next to their associated commands in Workstation Pro menus.

Table 1. Default Hot-Key Combinations

Shortcut

Action

Ctrl+G

Grab input from the keyboard and mouse.

Ctrl+Alt

Release the mouse cursor.

Ctrl+Alt+Insert

Shut down or, depending on the guest operating system, log out of the guest operating system. This command is received solely by the virtual machine.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Shut down or, depending on the operating system, log out of the guest operating system.

On a Windows host, if you do not use the enhanced virtual keyboard feature, both the host operating system and the virtual machine receive this command, even when Workstation Pro has control of input. Cancel the ending of the host operating system session and return to the virtual machine to log out or shut down or perform administrative tasks.

Ctrl+Alt+Enter

Enter full screen mode.

Ctrl+Alt+spacebar

Send any command to the virtual machine so that Workstation Pro does not process it. Hold down Ctrl+Alt as you press and release the spacebar, and continue to hold the Ctrl+Alt keys down as you press the next key in the combination.

Ctrl+Tab

Ctrl+Shift+Tab

(Windows hosts only) Switch among tabs.

Ctrl+Alt+right arrow

In full screen mode, switch to the next powered-on virtual machine.

Ctrl+Alt+left arrow

In full screen mode, switch to the previous powered-on virtual machine.

Ctrl+Shift+U

In Unity mode, give access to the virtual machine Start or Applications menu.

You can change the Unity hot-key combination by modifying Unity preference settings.

You can change the default hot-key combinations by modifying Workstation Pro for common virtual machine operations to Ctrl+Shift, you press Ctrl+Shift instead of Ctrl+Alt to release control from the current virtual machine.