With the release of View 3.1 we received some more flexibility with presenting/hiding Human Interface Devices  (think foot pedals for a transcriptionist, some type of bardcode scanners, etc).

HID devices are filtered out by default as it would be a bad thing if your local mouse was redirected for example.  So to enable a specific device to be passed through we need to do a few things:

1:  First we need to determine the VID/PID of the HID device.  There are two ways to determine this:

a:  Debug Logs:  Go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Vmware\VDM\logs.  Search through the log for “Devices”  This will contain the information of all the devices available before filtering takes place

b:  Windows Device Manager:  Open Windows Device Manager and find the HID device you are interested in.  If you right-click–>Properties on the object and go to the Details tab you will see a drop down.  Choose Device Instance ID from the drop-down.  The VID/PID value will be displayed.  Usually this looks something like USB\VID_xxxx&PID_xxxx\…

2:  Now that we know the VID/PID we can go to the client and create the appropriate registry keys to tell the View Client to pass that particular HID device through:

a:  Go to HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\USB\

b:  Create a new Multi-String Value named AllowHardwareIDs

c:  Set the value data to the VID_xxxx&PID_xxxx you documented earlier

d:  Restart the client and things should work upon the next connection

Special Thanks to Pete Barber for this info!