Windows 7 on Mac with VMware Fusion: A Practical Guide Revisited
There has been a lot of buzz flying around Windows 7 since its public beta release earlier this year. Team Fusion released a Practical Guide to Windows 7 on Mac with VMware Fusion when the Windows 7 public beta was released earlier and lots of users took advantage of the opportunity to check out the forthcoming version of Windows.
In fact, I have been running my day to day work life out of a Windows 7 Public Beta VM using Mirrored Folders and Shared Applications since the beta was released and it has been working really well with a couple of known caveats that we mentioned at the time.
Today, Microsoft released a public release candidate of Windows 7. We have installed Windows 7 RC on a number of Macs from a first generation MacBook Air to a higher end MacBook Pro and Windows 7 RC is really responsive with the default VMware Fusion settings on all Macs we have tried.
Personally, I am excited to see the improvements in my day to day use of Windows 7 at work. More important, I am excited that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is the easiest way for you to try out Windows on your Mac for FREE (at least until the beta expires). That’s right, you can download Windows 7 Release Candidate through July 1st and it’s free to use until it expires on June 1, 2010.
While VMware Fusion won’t formally support Windows 7 until it is released later this year, the Windows 7 Release Candidate works really well in VMware Fusion 2.0.4 based on our initial testing.
Getting Up and Running with Windows 7 in VMware Fusion
Windows 7 Release Candidate, both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, is not officially supported with VMware Fusion 2 today, but the VMware Fusion features you rely upon including Drag and Drop, Unity, Shared Applications, and more all seem to work really well so far.
The caveats we mentioned for the Windows 7 Public Beta around 3D, Shared Folders, and Mirrored Folders are NO longer an issue with the Windows 7 Release Candidate.
We plan to fully support Windows 7 after it is officially released with a future release of VMware Fusion.
See below for some guidance on how to set things up for best success.
NOTE: If you have an existing Windows 7 Beta virtual machine or Windows XP virtual machine, you CANNOT upgrade them to Windows 7 RC according to Microsoft. You will need to create a new Windows 7 RC virtual machine.
Download the Windows 7 Release Candidate
First, download the Windows 7 Release Candidate ISO from Microsoft’s Windows 7 site and get yourself a release candidate product key. You can use 32-bit or 64-bit, but the world is moving to 64-bit for better performance, so this example will assume you are using the 64-bit edition of Windows 7. Just download the Windows 7 ISO to your desktop.
Creating Your Windows 7 Virtual Machine
First, you’ll create a new virtual machine, the same as you’ve done before via “File>New”:
Next, we’re going to point the New Virtual Machine Assistant at the Windows 7 Release Candidate ISO you just downloaded. Typically, if you just insert a Windows install disk, VMware Fusion automatically recognizes what OS is in it, but in this case, we have to point it at the ISO.
Click “Continue without disk.”
Then, choose “Use operating system installation disk image file”:
Just select the ISO in the dialog that pops up:
Windows Easy Install will parse the disk image as Windows Vista (either 32 or 64 bit, depending on which ISO you downloaded). Accept the Vista default option.
Next, enter the serial key that was provided to you by Microsoft, and paste it into the Windows Product Key entry in Windows Easy Install.
At this point, you should see your final configuration setup, with 1 GB of RAM assigned, and a virtual hard disk that will expand up to 40GB (but will start much smaller). Click “Finish.”
Once you hit “Finish,” Windows Easy Install will be off and running, installing Windows 7. You’ll see some reboots, and VMware Tools will install automatically.
After that’s all finished, you should be able to play around with Windows 7 as you would expect.
While the Windows 7 Release Candidate works well in our limited testing so far, it is not a supported configuration today, so there could be bugs you encounter until we have full support in a future VMware Fusion release with the final shipping Windows 7 software.
Tweaking Windows 7 for the Best Experience
Securing Windows
One of the most used VMware Fusion features is Unity 2.0, which includes Mirrored Folders so that Windows applications work like Mac apps and they work with your existing files and folders stored in your Mac’s Documents, Music, Pictures, and Desktop folders.
Since Mirrored Folders allows Windows to access files on your Mac, we highly recommend installing antivirus software in Windows to avoid problems.
VMware Fusion 2 bundles a 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus to keep Windows up to date against viruses to help avoid problems. Unfortunately, the included version of McAfee VirusScan Plus does not work with Windows 7.
Since we recommend using a Windows anti-virus solution to keep Windows on your Mac secure, we recommend you go to Microsoft’s recommended antivirus partner website to download and install a Windows 7 compatible antivirus product that meets your needs.
Stop Windows 7 From Suspending Itself Every 30 Minutes
By default, Windows 7 is set to automatically put the computer to sleep every 30 minutes. While this is good on a physical PC, this isn’t optimized for a VM where the Mac is already managing when to sleep the computer.
This is easy to fix and only takes a minute to create a virtual machine savvy power management profile by doing the following.
1) Click on the Windows Start button
2) Type “Power” into the Search program and files search box
3) Select “Change power-saving settings”
4) Click “Create a power plan”
5) Choose “High Performance” as the basis and enter “VMware” as the name and click Next
6) Change “Put the computer to sleep” from 30 minutes to Never and click Create
Tweaking VMware Fusion for the Best Experience
Have a MacBook Air or other Mac with 2GB or less of RAM?
Windows 7 Release Candidate runs really well even on a MacBook Air, but you need to make a small change to VMware Fusion’s default preferences to get the best performance from Windows 7.
By default, VMware Fusion is set to optimize performance for virtual machines and this preference uses available RAM to increase disk performance. If you are running Windows XP or have 4 GB or more of RAM, this is a great choice.
However, Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM and if you only have 2 GB of RAM in your Mac, you need to change this preference to choose Optimize for Mac OS application performance.
This is an easy change and only takes a second, just follow the steps below:
- Select Preferences in VMware Fusion menu
- In General, change the Performance preference to "Optimize for Mac OS application performance”
You Are Now Ready To Check Out Windows 7 in VMware Fusion
If you don’t already have VMware Fusion 2, download the free trial of VMware Fusion 2 or buy yourself a copy, and then get yourself the Windows 7 Release Candidate to see how you can get the most out of Windows on your Mac.
Good stuff, I tried 7 build 7068 and then 7100 in VMWare Workstation for Linux. Works great.
But that's funny that you guys recommend installing Anti-virus in Windows guest OS. I am thinking that what is Windows for? Now I understand that we run Windows to install Antivirus software! LOL.
Posted by: Terry Wang | May 05, 2009 at 05:26 AM
Any timeframe on get aero to work in the VM with Vm tools installed?
Posted by: Chris | May 05, 2009 at 06:57 AM
Chris,
Aero is LOT of work and a whole new graphics architecture.
However, we can't comment on unannounced or future product plans. Sorry!
Terry - Have to recommend AV if you are using features like Mirrored Folders, or people could get into trouble.
Posted by: Pat Lee | May 05, 2009 at 07:22 AM
I just finished installing Win7 64 on my MacBook Pro, but now I'm wondering if there's really anything to be gained if I'm just giving the VM 2GB of RAM to play with. Working in the CAD world, most people point to 64-bit as the solution to the 3GB RAM limit. With the 2GB VM setup, am I just wasting processing power in virtualizing the 64-Bit architecture?
Posted by: James Wedding | May 05, 2009 at 02:48 PM
Good Question, James -- I am wondering the same thing. I'm also weighing it against the fact that some Windows software isn't supported on 64-bit OS, and I might have a hard time troubleshooting whether something had an issue with Win7, or with 64-bit.
Posted by: John O'Shaughnessy | May 05, 2009 at 03:12 PM
Hi - Just tried the instructions above and also installed all bootcamp x64 frivers. DVD Drive is not working for me - doesnt seem to detect the physical drive whetever I do Macbook 13.3 Unibody - anyone else having this issue - everythign else works, even iSight and I have re-installed VMWARE tools. The NEC driver appears for the CD Drive in Windows7 Device manager - just never kicks in.
Posted by: Neil | May 06, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Has anyone tried adding a VMWare shared folder to Media Center in the Windows 7 RC? I haven't been able to do it. Here's my scenario:
I have all of my music and video on a firewire drive connected to my Mac Mini. I have the folder with the videos attached to the Windows 7 VM as a shared folder (read-write) in VMWare fusion. The folder shows up in Windows explorer, and I can browse the contents that way. I can also play videos off of the drive in Windows Media player. So far, so good.
However, when I try to add the folder to my library in Media Center, none of the subdirectories display and I can't see any of my media. Perhaps Media Center isn't thrilled with hgfs?
This isn't a dealbreaker or anything; I just thought it would be fun to try. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.
Posted by: Greg | May 06, 2009 at 11:37 AM
OK so in answer to my own post, I am sure there is an easy way to do this by changing a config file but the problem seems to be becausde I installed form a hard disk image, the V< is trying to detect that device as the DVD-ROM. I burnt an ISO of Windows7 to DVD installed from that and now it is all working perfectly, I am sure there are easier ways to fix this and I would still be interested to know how but at least it might help any other noob following the instructions above who has the same issue! Not an elegant solution but a working one!
Posted by: Neil | May 06, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Followed your previous guide and installed the beta, thanks for this next guide for the RC. It is (so far) even easier this time round. Thanks.
Posted by: Theo Jones | May 06, 2009 at 01:48 PM
I followed the instructions above but cannot seem to get the aero experience enabled. I ran the windows experience index but only get a 1.0 on gaming graphics and 1.9 on performance for aero. I'm running vmware on a new macbook pro so definitely have the power. Any ideas? Thanks.
Posted by: Rich | May 06, 2009 at 01:55 PM
As a followup to my question, the issue definitely has something to do with the way that Windows Media Center sees the VMWare shared folder. From the Mac, I created a samba share for the video directory on the firewire drive, and that works fine. Once I mapped the Samba share to a drive in Windows 7, I could add it to the Video library in Media Center. Media Center recognized all of the files and a few minutes later, I was streaming them to the 360. Pretty slick! I would have liked to use the VMWare shared folder, but the samba approach will work.
Interestingly, the 360 will play files that Media Center on the Windows 7 VM won't. I don't think that's anything to do with VMWare Fusion, though. It's probably just a codec issue in the default Win7 install.
Posted by: Greg | May 06, 2009 at 05:53 PM
I suppose you may not be able to answer this but I'll ask anyway:
Will Fusion be updated (or beta updates released, if that's a thing) throughout the life of the RC, or is everything relating to Windows 7 effectively frozen until the official release?
Posted by: Andrew | May 06, 2009 at 06:58 PM
I have a new macpro 2.66 with 6GB ram - plenty of grunt- however I get the following message when I try to run Windows 7 after installing. I have tried both the Vista X 64(May 09) and the Server 2008 (Jan 09) versions suggested by the VM guide.
MESSAGE
VMware Fusion unrecoverable error: (vmx)
ASSERT bora/vmcore/vmx/main/cpuid.c:586
A log file is available in "/var/folders/NE/NEPsJH9SFKWey8fbgoMVoE+++TQ/-Tmp-//vmware-ijo/vmware-ijo-2526.log". A core file is available in "/cores/core.2527". Please request support and include the contents of the log file and core file.
Anyone have any suggestions? Do I need a purchased copy of Vista to make it work?
Thanks
John.
Posted by: John | May 06, 2009 at 09:43 PM
Installed Windows7 RC on Bootcamp partition, then attempted to run it in VMWare Fusion.
Beta worked fine, but RC BSODs during the startup animation - it's a quick flash before rebooting, but it seems to be having trouble with the disk hardware.
I downloaded the trial version of Parallels, and the bootcamp partition works fine there, so I am assuming it must be a current incompatibility between Fusion 2.0.4 and Windows7RC on Bootcamp.
Have you had this issue reported already?
Posted by: Mark A | May 07, 2009 at 05:01 AM
I'm having a lot of trouble with networking, specifically with Internet Explorer. (Aluminum MBP - 4gb ram, 1gb and 1proc assigned to win7 rc). I am routinely seeing the alert that there is no internet access. IE seems to just CRAWL or not work. Sometimes other browsers will work when IE won't, and sometimes they don't function either. I've tried lots of networking settings but am hoping that others have this solved. I too am hoping for an interim release of Fusion with more support for Win7 RC (I don't care about Aero at all)
Posted by: Aaron Booker | May 07, 2009 at 06:07 AM
John,
I don't know what is happening in your case. I recommend going into the VMware Fusion Forums and posting the details.
http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/fusion
Posted by: Pat Lee | May 07, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Mark,
We have not tried with Windows 7 with Boot Camp since Apple doesn't support it at this time.
I will forward this into the team for future consideration.
Posted by: Pat Lee | May 07, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Aaron,
Is this a newly created VM or a Boot Camp VM?
Networking should work just fine and IE is zippy in all our tests.
We have had to make no changes for Windows 7 so far, it follows the Vista model.
Have you tried moving to bridged networking from NAT and does that work better for you?
Posted by: Pat Lee | May 07, 2009 at 10:43 AM
I tried installing Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro using Fusion 2.0.4 but it gets to the first screen and asks for drivers:
"No device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, then click OK."
I have tried it with an installation CD then tried ripping off the iso to install directly off my local HDD but it gives the same error for both.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by: Brad | May 07, 2009 at 08:04 PM
I have the same issue as Brad, and have been unable to find an answer anywhere.
If it helps, I have the 32-bit release candidate. Installing on an iMac within VMware Fusion 2.04.
Thanks,
Mark.
Posted by: Mark | May 08, 2009 at 12:50 AM
It was a newly created Vista 32bit VM. I've tried all three forms of networking - but no joy. I'm going to try doing a rollback and see if it's software I installed or an update that caused the problem. (it was perfect for several days - so much so that I pitched my Vista VM!). Love the performance - so much faster than Vista. (and seems faster than my vague memories of XP)
Posted by: Aaron Booker | May 08, 2009 at 05:17 AM
If anyone else has the issue I had above (Fusion + Bootcamp + Win7 RC crashing with BSOD during startup animation) here is the fix.
I previously was Bootcamping Windows 7 Beta, and it looks like the vmx and vmdk that Fusion had prepared for that installation did not like booting the Windows 7 RC.
You need to let Fusion re-prepare/generate your new Windows 7 partition for running under Fusion, you can do this by simply deleting the following folder.
~/Library/Application Support/VMWare Fusion/Virtual Machines/Bootcamp
Once you've deleted this folder, Start VMWare and then run your Bootcamp VM - Fusion will "prepare" the partition for use, and boot up successfully.
Posted by: MarkA | May 08, 2009 at 07:58 AM
Thanks for the guide! I've tried it out and it works. I'm running Windows 7 RC on Fusion 2.0.4; my machine is a stock 2GHz unibody MacBook. A few notes from my experience:
(1) Disabling 3D acceleration makes things go much more smoothly. The system is much more responsive, and there are fewer (none) visual artefacts.
(2) When I changed the machine to use two virtual processors, the audio started having problems. When doing an "Audio and video setup" in Messenger, the audio playback test is badly distorted. The YouTube videos I tested also exhibited some slight distortion, and the "Configure" stuff in the Control Panel's "Manage audio devices" is also pretty bad. Changing to using only a single one ironed out most of the problems, although there is still a bit of distortion now and then.
(3) While installing into a "Windows Vista" machine did work, I switched it to Windows Server 2008 later (which was the recommended mode for Win7Beta) and it worked just fine too... perhaps just a tiny bit smoother, although I'm not sure about that.
(4) Regardless of what I do, I get the freak-out on booting too.
I'm very happy with how it's all working. Thanks!
Posted by: Dickolas Wang | May 09, 2009 at 02:27 AM
Installed W7 RC on my 1.66GHz Mini. I also have a W2K VM on the same machine. I installed it as Vista and it works fine, although pokier than W2K, naturally. Previously I tried installing it as Server 2008, but it eventually blue-screened, so I not sure that's a good route with the RC.
Hardware Acceleration is ON, but no Aero eye candy due to the Mini's lame graphics. The VM runs noticeably SLOWER with Hardware Acceleration OFF.
I was able to cure a few red Xs in the Event Log by turning on a few services that I assume were supposed to be on.
All in all, an interesting experiment.
Posted by: Jon Heal | May 10, 2009 at 06:45 AM
Aero isn't supported, it has nothing to do with the graphic power of your computer. Aero needs WDDM graphics support, which VMware Fusion as of yet does not contain.
Posted by: Zac | May 11, 2009 at 10:41 PM