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Re: Testing with JAWS/NVDA on a virtual Windows 8/10 machine (Parallel's) running on a MAC

for

From: JP Jamous
Date: Oct 10, 2018 5:39AM

I have done it on a Mac Book Pro. I wrote about this in the past on this
list. What you want to do is the following.

1. In Parallel, select the desired VM and go to properties. You can there
configure the keyboard shortcut keys as some are already turned on and would
conflict with JAWS shortcut keys or Windows shortcut keys.
2. Boot the VM in Parallel and while it is booting, unload Voiceover from
memory.
3. Once inside the VM, it should recognize your external keyboard and you
can use the number pad keys as if you are behind a Windows machine.


As with every VM, you have to be careful with JAWS since it relies heavily
on video drivers. Even in Windows, I have noticed that Hyper-v does not
provide JAWS with proper video drivers. So using the JAWS cursor does not
always read the screen. It just states "Blank". That does not happen with
VMWare because it provides a video card to fool Windows and JAWS believes
that bluff.

With NVDA, you should be just fine as it is not reliant on video drivers
like JAWS. Just remember that configuring those shortcut keys in the
properties of the VM are only VM dependent. They are not global changes in
Parallel.

BTW, I mentioned an external keyboard, because I personally find it much
easier for me to use. You can still use the Mac keyboard, but it would be
way easier to have the full keyboard with the numpad keys available.



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JP Jamous
Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer
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