Windows Vm

Windows VM

Inspect the intended session and current control tools. Distinguish Mac actions, guest configuration, synthetic input, and physical application behavior. Configure shortcuts only when requested.

Current handoff

On 2026-09-13, Windows Snipping Tool captured a region inside the guest and its copied image visibly pasted into guest Paint. The Q11's physical Command-Shift-3/4 failed; the user requires those exact chords, and a rejected Fn+4 alternate was restored. Three-finger swipe intermittently stopped after entering/exiting the VM. Read screenshots-and-gestures.md for the working mouse route and current evidence; neither shortcut nor full-screen swipe is fixed.

The 2026-09-10 Keychron setup remains incomplete: physical Command arrows performed word navigation and Option arrows did nothing in Notepad, including after a verified PowerToys restart. Earlier console-event passes did not establish editor success. Windows remaps remain installed; Mac hardware layers were preserved. Read keyboard-context.md before resuming keyboard work for successes, failed approaches, unresolved questions, and rollback. Do not reapply the recipe as a proven solution.

The user explicitly requested guest tooling for reliable control, with work to stop if permissions or policy block it. Direct guest UI Automation read and selected a PowerToys page, but the complete helper remains untransferred/unexecuted. The host control channel is the current bottleneck; no explicit UIA permission denial was observed. Read vm-control.md before continuing, and do not repeat blind focus/input attempts.

Control and recovery

These observations came from Windows App 11.4.0 (com.microsoft.rdc.macos), native CUA, and Windows PowerShell. Recheck after tool or environment changes.

• Native CUA app.getScreenshot() captured the visible guest on 2026-09-13. Remote coordinate clicks worked for Snipping Tool and Paint, then noWindowsAvailable recurred after resizing/focus changes. Raising or zooming the window was not a reliable recovery. Distinguish capture from input: a click failure does not establish screenshot failure. Avoid repeating unchanged failed actions.
• Normal-window/zoom transitions recovered access on some attempts. A fresh native accessibility session-window click restored typing when its center was visibly inside the owned Windows Terminal. Use a fresh element index and a safe target; this is not reliable coordinate clicking and can enter QuickEdit in classic consoles.
• If Connection Center appears while the session is active, use the native Window menu's connected-session entry (activateSession:), then verify the remote window. Do not reconnect solely because Connection Center is visible.
• After focus changes or a “user changed app” error, inspect before sending more input. A command visible at the prompt may not have executed. Coordinate uninterrupted access when necessary.

Text transfer and testing

Windows Terminal accepted chunked Unicode/Base64 transfers with hash verification after Unicode was selected through the menu. Trials requesting Scancode lost case; direct strings lost backslashes. Use Join-Path, forward slashes, or [char]92. Type, inspect until the complete command is visible, then send Return separately: Return in the same call overtook the slow guest buffer and split commands.

Classic conhost ignored typing after requesting Unicode at its interactive PowerShell prompt but accepted exit/Return after requesting Scancode. Transfer and hash-verify files through Terminal, then launch the owned file directly with PowerShell -File under conhost.exe -ForceNoHandoff.

Microsoft recommends Scancode for arrows/combinations; use Unicode temporarily for setup. The session's checked mode was never conclusively verified, and KeyboardDriverMode=0 remains uninterpreted. Menu selection alone does not prove the mode; if checked state is inaccessible, record it as unknown instead of repeating the clicks. Keyboard modes

Synthetic Control/Super combinations often arrived as plain keys. F20 did not open Run; F24 was rejected. No reliable automation launch key or complete automated shortcut suite was established. Console probes must account for QuickEdit, ConPTY reconstruction, and PowerToys' 0xFF dummy events; see the reference.

For this user, request a simple test of the affected shortcuts after a meaningful change; avoid ordered cursor exercises and repeated identical requests. A user-reported application failure outweighs a passing configuration check. Stop an unproductive loop, record the blocker, and require a new evidence-producing approach before resuming.

Maintain this skill

The user authorized frequent updates that save substantial future work. Keep dated successes, failures, evidence boundaries, and unresolved questions; replace stale guidance and prune repetition instead of accumulating a journal.

Keep this skill documentation-only: no credentials, client content, or executable helpers. Link external artifacts with their tested/unexecuted status. Maintenance does not authorize VM changes or background automation. Validate with the skill-creator validator when available.