VMWare Fusion: Stuck window, can't resize or move


VMWare Fusion did something strange today: as I switched between full screen and windowed mode on one of my VMs, the VM windows got stuck: It stayed full screen even though it was in windowed mode.

Since this was on a Mac, I had no obvious recourse to solve this problem. Fortunately, I was able to find a solution.

On Windows I would be able to press Alt and use the arrow keys to either move or resize the window, but that option does nothing on a Mac. I tried suspending/resuming the VM, mirroring the display with an external monitor and looking at the VMWare Fusion menu options. Nothing seemed to work.

At this point I remembered something I learned a long time ago (I've been using Macs to some degree for the last 15 years): Command-W will close a window. I selected the VM window that was 'stuck', pressed Command-W, then re-opened the VM. At this point the window was back to normal.

This also worked when the problem happened again and the VM's window was mostly off the top of the screen.