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Cannot Power On an ACE Instance That Uses Kiosk Mode or Keyboard Logging Detection

Details

VMware has encountered incompatibilities with some third-party keyboard drivers. In previous versions of Workstation and ACE, these incompatibilities sometimes led to blue screens (BSODs) on some Windows hosts. To avoid this situation, a check is performed before the virtual machine can power on. If certain Logitech or Microsoft keyboards are detected, the VMware filter driver, called the vmkbd, is not attached to the keyboard process, and the virtual machine is prevented from powering on.

The vmkbd driver is always used when you set a virtual machine to use the enhanced virtual keyboard feature. By default this feature is enabled. Creating an ACE policy for using keyboard logging detection or a policy to run the ACE instance in kiosk mode requires that you also use the enhanced virtual keyboard feature. Therefore, if you use any of these features, the vmkbd needs to be able to attach to the keyboard.

Keyboards with the following vendor IDs (VIDs) and product IDs (PIDs) have been identified as being incompatible:

VID:045E PID:00DD
   VID:046D PID:C221
   VID:046D PID:C222
   VID:046D PID:C226
   VID:046D PID:C317
   VID:046D PID:C505

Solution

To work around this issue, remove the incompatible keyboard, plug in a compatible keyboard, and then reboot the host system.

Alternatively, change the registry settings that prevent the virtual machine from powering on if an incompatible keyboard is detected.

Use regedit to add the following key, which tells the vmdbd not to attach to any keyboard:

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmkbd\vmkbdUnattach

If you use this solution, the enhanced virtual keyboard, keyboard logging, and kiosk mode feature will not work correctly. Also with this setting, pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete will cause the Task Manager to appear on both the host and the guest.

You can also use regedit to add the following key, which allows the vmkbd to attach to an incompatible keyboard:

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmkbd\blacklistDisable

In this case, the risk is that you might encounter a blue screen when you reboot the host.

Keywords

ws650

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