QEMU PS/2 Mouse in Win11 not working correctly with Side Buttons -> unable to change the driver to one that would work

[mokura]

Hi everyone,

i am currently trying out QEMU and have a Win11 VM.
I already have my first Problem that the side buttons, for going backwards and forwards, are not working.

I have already done a bit of research on this and there should be a quick fix which is simply in Windows 11 i am to and i a quote a Redditor:
"Launch Device Manager
Open the Mice and other pointing devices section
Right-click on PS/2 Compatible Mouse and select Update Driver
Select Browse my computer for driver software
Select the Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer option
Untick the Show compatible hardware checkbox
Select Microsoft (default) in the left pane, and then scroll until you find Microsoft PS/2 in the right pane"

I also checked out VirtualBox and checked the drivers there and it was "Microsoft PS/2". In VirtualBox i was able to use my side buttons without any issue due to this driver. But in QEMU/Virtmanager i am unable to switch the drivers. Everytime i try to update the driver and reboot it would reboot to have the "PS/2 Compatible Mouse" driver installed. This feels like a simple XML change. On QEMU/Virtmanager the mouse XML is <input type="mouse" bus="ps2"/> so i need to know what the bus name for "Microsoft PS/2" is.

Can anyone help me out with this issue?

Thank you

[powerhouse]

As a workaround, you could try to pass through the USB hub as PCI device to Windows. That is not always an option, though. You need to see if you have at least two separate USB hubs on your motherboard, and if they fall into different IOMMU groups.

Passing through a USB hub to the VM using PCI passthrough makes all devices connected to that hub directly accessible to Windows. In that case you would install the Windows driver for that device. It also means that if you have other devices connected to that same hub, they will be accessible from the Windows VM only and not from the host, until you turn off the VM.

There have been lots of improvements in QEMU and PCI passthrough for mouse / keyboard is usually not necessary. But it is still an option and can sometimes be of benefit.

For IOMMU groups, see https://www.heiko-sieger.info/iommu-gro ... -consider/

For more on creating a passthrough VM, see https://www.heiko-sieger.info/creating- ... ssthrough/. Instructions are also given for Intel-based systems.

I've been using PCI passthrough all along. Some devices like my printer, a scanner, an optional external drive, as well as mouse and keyboard are connected to the host. I can switch both my mouse and my keyboard (both wireless) to a different wireless dongle (receiver) that has been passed through to the Windows VM, along with fast USB ports for importing large memory cards containing high-res photos or 4k or 8k video files. This gives me the best performance.

Hope it helps.