When you install a Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 on a vmware esx/esxi 4.x host you will notice that the mouse movement is slower then on a Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 hosted on a vmware esx/esxi 4.x hypervisor.

You can solve this problem by going threw the following steps:

  1. Power Off the virtual machine hosting the Microsoft Windows 2008 R2
  2. Modify the Virtual Machine Properties for the virtual card from “Enter total video RAM” to
    “Auto-detect video settings”
  3. Save the settings and Power on the virtual machine
  4. Login to the system and open the device manager
    (start -> type the following in the search field: devmgmt.msc and click enter)
  5. Expand “Display adapters” and right-click on the “Standard VGA Graphics Adapter”
    Click on “Update Driver Software”
  6. Select “Browse my computer for driver software”
  7. Enter the following location to search for the driver:
    “c:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video”
  8. If everything is correct the driver will be installed successfully
  9. For the driver to take effect you will need to restart the virtual machine, a popup will notify you for this.
  10. Enjoy the smooth running mouse in your Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine 😛