Mouse cursor is invisible in virtual machine

Symptoms

I would like to connect one mouse directly to the virtual machine and use it exclusively for controlling it while other mouse is used to control the Mac.

There is a problem: when virtual machine gains focus from ‘indirectly’ connected (shared) mouse and then subsequently loses it, the mouse which is connected directly is no longer visible inside virtual machine’s window.

So I can use directly connected mouse to control the virtual machine but the problem is that the cursor is invisible. This setup works only when 2 devices control the same cursor but when I try to desynchronize (make 2 cursors – 1 in a virtual machine and 1 in Mac), the cursor in virtual machine becomes invisible and never returns

Cause

This type of configuration is not officially supported.

Resolution

For Windows virtual machines

1. Shut Down virtual machine.

2. Open Virtual Machine configuration.

3. Go to Hardware > Boot Order > and paste in Boot Flags box:

   video.hw_pointer=0

Note: The above solution will work fine when using a virtual machine for simple tasks such as document processing, but heavier usage (like games or 3D software) may work unreliably.

For macOS virtual machines

Click Apple logo > System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Cursor and move the Cursor size slider slightly to the right.

Note: Due to technical limitations imposed by macOS, this solution may result in the performance degradation as well as visual artefacts. If this happens, there are no workarounds to mitigate it.

For Linux virtual machines

Due to technical limitations, the only way to achieve this in Linux virtual machines is to uninstall Parallels Tools.