The VMware Fusion team would like to announce the general availability of VMware Fusion 1.1.2, a free update for all VMware Fusion users.  You can download this newest version here.

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 now provides better support for the MacBook Air, enables Time Machine backup of virtual machines, adds support for Windows XP SP3 Boot Camp partitions, and is now available in Simplified Chinese.

Seamless Windows on the World's Thinnest Notebook

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 addresses two MacBook Air-related problems. Previously, MacBook Air users would encounter a crash if a virtual CD/DVD drive was connected to the virtual machine but a CD/DVD drive was not connected to the MacBook Air. This update fixes this issue.  Also, this latest VMware Fusion update adds the ability to burn CD/DVDs with the MacBook Air’s USB Superdrive.

Take Your VM Back in Time

Prior versions of VMware Fusion automatically excluded virtual machines from Time Machine backups to avoid hitting a Mac OS X-related crash when backing up running virtual machines.

Apple has addressed this issue in Mac OS X 10.5.2 and VMware Fusion 1.1.2 enables Time Machine to back up virtual machines on Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later.

NOTE: As part of the back up process, Time Machine makes duplicate copies of all non-excluded files, as those files change.  As such, Time Machine will make a new copy of any virtual machine that has run since the last time Time Machine ran.  Because virtual machines have a tendency to be large files (just like iMovie projects, or Aperture Libraries), and might take up large amounts of space with duplicate copies on your Time Machine hard drive, you may want to consider manually excluding certain virtual machines from backup in Time Machine’s preference pane.

How do you say "virtualization" in Chinese? VMware Fusion.

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 also introduces Simplified Chinese to the list of localized languages it ships with.  VMware Fusion now ships concurrently in five languages: English, French, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.

New Service Pack for Boot Camp

With Windows XP Service Pack 3 arriving on April 29th, VMware Fusion now supports Windows XP Service Pack 3 Boot Camp partitions when they are run as virtual machines.

Other Bugs Squished in VMware Fusion 1.1.2

• Properly disconnect USB devices left connected to the virtual machine at shut down, making the USB devices available again to the Mac.
• Addresses problem with wireless bridged networking in some cases not being able to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server.
• Fixes a sound problem where only the default speaker worked in some cases.
• Pressing the newly-introduced keys on the new slim Apple Aluminum Keyboard caused VMware Fusion to crash in certain circumstances.  This has now been fixed.
• VMware Fusion’s keyboard shortcuts to remap common Windows commands to Mac keyboard equivalents could not be disabled previously in Full Screen or Single Window views
• In some cases, VMware Fusion, after being upgraded to Version 1.1.1, would fail with a Signal 10 error when the user tried to use the keyboard. This problem has been fixed.

Come and Get It!

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 is a FREE update for all existing VMware Fusion customers.  For new customers, VMware Fusion retails for $79.99, and is eligible for a current $20 mail-in rebate for customers in the United States and Canada. 

Parallels Desktop or Virtual PC for Mac users qualify for a $30 competitive upgrade mail-in rebate that lowers the cost to $49.99.

More information on switching to VMware Fusion and the competitive upgrade rebate.

To download VMware Fusion 1.1.2, go to:

http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/