Hey,
For better understanding the issue and get the full picture of it, if I am not understood it wrong, you mean that
-The keystrokes works fine while the virtual machine is in focus.
-The keystrokes will not work when the virtual machine is not in focus. Am I right?
If so my understanding is that while the other application is in focus any command or any keystrokes are provided to that application and not other. Hence I believe the behavior on your system is normal.
Guys please correct me if my understanding to "Boeman" issue is wrong.
Cheers..