Why is VMware workstation adding keystokes when I type?

Question

I'm having a very strange problem. I'm remote desktoping into a system and running vmware workstation there(its a pretty powerful server and wanted to test a cluster on it). My problem is when I type it repeats the characters. For example, instead of root, it types rooot or rrrrrrrooooot. So I can't get into my linux systems

I thought this was due to my connection(remote desktop to a server in another country) but when I open notepad it works fine. This issue appears to only be related to vmware workstation.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Answer 1

Try putting this in your .vmx file:

keyboard.typematicMinDelay = "2000000"

This will increase the delay before a keypress is repeated to 2 seconds (2000000 microseconds). This should effectively remove your problems with keyboard repeat for your VM. A side effect is of course that it will make it harder for you to use keyboard repeat...

For more information on how to edit your .vmx file, see this guide on vmware.com.

EDIT: Also, here's a more detailed guide to the solution I provided.