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: Katie Haritos-Shea
Date: Oct 10, 2018 9:22AM


Jonathan,

Thanks for these details.

This VM is a newer AWS (Amazon Web Services) product that uses Parallels,
and the keyboard remapping have not been fixed...for performing Windows
testing on a MAC.

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:16 AM Jonathan Cohn < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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
> >>
> >>