WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

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

for

From: Jonathan Cohn
Date: Oct 10, 2018 8:16AM

When using VM-Fusion, there is not really much difference in keys.

1. Caps lock does not get truly passed through to Windows.
Mac keyboards have an additional key in the top row of the num pad.
The Windows/Command and the Option/Alt keys are toggled in position between Windows keyboards and Mac keyboards.

Of these issues the only one that really gets in the way is the caps lock, and there are some hacks involving unmapping caps lock in system preferences and then remapping it with an alternative mapping like F19 and then telling Windows that F19 is the Caps lock key. Note, I am running an older vm-ware Fusion, so there is a chance they have actually fixed the caps lock not being passed to Windows but being handled by the MacOS.

However, I expect that if you try to get any support from the Vendor and they realize you are using virtual drivers rather than real drivers that they will complain a bit. Performance issues have already been discussed on the list.

I do however do testing using vmWare and both Windows 7 and Windows 10 on a daily basis.

Jonathan cohn

> On Oct 9, 2018, at 9:13 PM, Katie Haritos-Shea < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Len,
>
> The keyboard difference does concern me. And I am thinking an attached
> windows keyboard is still going to capture the keystrokes as-a-mac /
> incorrectly / instead-of-as-windows.... to match windows testing...
>
> On Tue, Oct 9, 2018, 9:01 PM Len Burns via WebAIM-Forum <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Iwould not do it on an Air, but I do something similar under Fusion on a
>> 2015 MacBook Pro with 16 gb and the fastest available processor that was
>> available at that time. I set up Windows 10 with 8 gb of ram. The
>> performance is reasonable but not what I would describe as fast. As always
>> where a Mac is mixed with Windows and a screen reader you must make peace
>> with the keyboarding needs of the screen reader.
>>
>> Regards,
>> -Len
>>
>>
>>
>> -Len
>>
>>