Workaround for gPhotoShow and VMware monitor lockup.

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BretAB
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2020 7:50 pm

Workaround for gPhotoShow and VMware monitor lockup.

Post by BretAB »

Hi,

I'm just making a public service post here to (hopefully) help the IT community, as follows:

This thread describes a workaround for monitor/video lock-up when cursor is left in a VMware v10 client virtual machine and gPhotoShow activates on the host Windows machine, which causes PC monitor to lock up with the gPhotoShow presentation still running and no way to exit gPhotoShow. The workaround is :
Press Ctrl+Alt+Enter: This causes the VM to go full screen, which unlocks the locked-up gPhotoShow show session. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter again sends the VM back to its normal sized window, we see our normal Windows desktop, and now the screen is not locked up.

Prior to discovering the Ctrl+Alt+Enter fix, I had to use another device to initiate an RDP session into the "locked" PC, which for whatever reason, magically unloaded the running gPhotoShow session and allowed access to the Windows Desktop once again (albeit desktop icons scattered all over the place, not good). That's another good reason to use ICU (aka Icon Configuration Utility) every now and then to save your Desktop icons and placement.

Hope that helps : )

Regards . . .

P.S. The problem described here may be graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6450), OS (currently supported Windows), or other hardware/software dependent. That means your mileage with this workaround may vary.
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gpb
Site Admin
Posts: 761
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:23 am

Re: Workaround for gPhotoShow and VMware monitor lockup.

Post by gpb »

Thanks for the hint. I am using VMWare Workstation 12 and never had that problem.
Gianpaolo Bottin
gPhotoShow.com
BretAB
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2020 7:50 pm

Re: Workaround for gPhotoShow and VMware monitor lockup.

Post by BretAB »

Hi Gianpaolo,
Good to know, thanks for the feedback!
To clarify for others: My "lockup" only occurs if I forget to move the mouse cursor out of an active VM client window, and gPhotoShow engages thereafter in the Windows host session. That AMD Radeon HD 6450 card in that PC is a bare bones card, but sufficient for the general office work and non-production VM's run on that PC. I should have mentioned that PC is AMD FX-8350 (8 core) with 32GB RAM.
Regards . . .
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