Can't switch windows after releasing control in fullscreen guest

Hi,

i'm running VMWare Workstation 9.0.2 on my laptop (Host: Windows8Pro, Guest Xubuntu 13.04) and one thing keeps on annoying me.

I'm usually working in fullscreen mode in the guest system. Sometimes I want to switch to an application in the Host system, but I don't really want to exist fullscreen on the guest because this screws with the window layout due to resizing etc.

So I hit Ctrl+Alt in order to release control and afterwards hit Alt+Tab in order to switch to the target window on the Host. However, although the Host's alt+tab dialog is shown and I can cycle the windows (Windows 8 even shows the aero preview of the target window), I can not actually switch to the window.

After releasing Alt+Tab, the Guest System is still the visible window (although control is released). I'm also using a similar setup (Host Windows7, Guest Xubuntu 12.10) on my Desktop, where this approach works perfectly. Do you have any suggestions what's wrong?

Thanks in Advance,

elemakil