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<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="mouse-capture">
  <title>Configuring Automatic Mouse Capturing</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>By default, the mouse is captured if the user clicks on the guest window and the guest expects relative mouse
      coordinates at this time. This happens if the pointing device is configured as PS/2 mouse and the guest has not
      yet started the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> Guest Additions. For instance, the guest is
      booting or the Guest Additions are not installed, or if the pointing device is configured as a USB tablet but the
      guest has no USB driver loaded yet. Once the Guest Additions become active or the USB guest driver is started, the
      mouse capture is automatically released. </p>
    <p>The default behavior is sometimes not appropriate. Therefore it can be configured as follows: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage setextradata <varname>VM-name</varname> GUI/MouseCapturePolicy <varname>mode</varname>
                  </pre>
    <p><varname>mode</varname> is one of the following:
      </p>
    <dl>
      <dlentry>
        <dt>
          <codeph>Default</codeph>
        </dt>
        <dd>
          <p>The default behavior as described above. </p>
        </dd>
      </dlentry>
      <dlentry>
        <dt>
          <codeph>HostComboOnly</codeph>
        </dt>
        <dd>
          <p>The mouse is only captured if the Host Key is toggled. </p>
        </dd>
      </dlentry>
      <dlentry>
        <dt>
          <codeph>Disabled</codeph>
        </dt>
        <dd>
          <p>The mouse is never captured, also not by toggling the Host Key </p>
        </dd>
      </dlentry>
    </dl>
    <p>This is a per-VM setting. </p>
  </body>
  
</topic>
