CTRL-clicking in VMware Fusion

If you use the Enable Mac OS keyboard shortcuts option in VMware Fusion, Mac keyboard commands are passed on to the VM, which is useful if your Mac-schooled muscle memory has you pressing ⌘+S every time you breathe.

The Enable Mac OS mouse shortcuts also affects the CTRL key, which is used in Windows for nonadjacent selection & a few other handy things.

With the latter option active, VMware interprets the a CTRL-click like a Mac would, invoking the context shortcut menu instead of extending the current selection, which can be absolutely vexing if you’re trying to select a bunch of individual files in a folder or open a Firefox link in a new tab.

While you can easily disable the option entirely, there is an alternative if you’ve grown accustomed to command-clicking to emulate a middle-click and want access to these mouse shortcuts in your VM:

To have it both ways, just use the Enter key to the right of the space bar instead! When you press this key and click the mouse, VMware passes this on to Windows as a CTRL-click.