VMware Fusion Blog

It’s been two months since we released VMware Fusion 4, and we have been thrilled with the response from our customers and the VMware Fusion community. We have also been listening carefully to how we can improve.

To that end, we’ve been working hard and are pleased to announce the release of VMware Fusion 4.1, available today as a free update for all VMware Fusion 4 customers.

Here in the US we’re about to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. VMware Fusion 4.1 is our thanks to you, our users.

Here’s a short summary of the key features and improvements in VMware Fusion 4.1

Smart Full Screen

The number one feature request we saw from VMware Fusion 4 users was for native Lion full screen mode. But we knew we had to get it right; to work out all the corners cases and make sure it met all the same requirements as the old full screen and worked seamlessly with Mac OS X Lion. 

Here is how full screen works with VMware Fusion 4.1

• The standard Lion full screen button is now used in virtual machine windows.

• Like other full screen Lion applications, a VMware Fusion virtual machine will move to a new full screen space when using a single display.

• If you are using multiple displays, VMware Fusion will intelligently decide whether to use a full screen space or not. If the virtual machine is configured to use all displays in full screen, it will move to a full screen space. If not, full screen will take the whole display in the current space. This allows working in Mac applications on one display while the virtual machine can make full use of the other.

• The full menu bar is now accessible from full screen mode in both Snow Leopard and Lion. We added a short delay in showing the menu which allows users to access the top of the virtual machine screen, particularly useful when running Mac OS X Lion or Ubuntu in a virtual machine.

• When working with multiple displays some users might prefer the optional full screen minibar. It provides quick access to common actions without leaving full screen mode. It takes minimal space on the screen and can even auto-hide.

The Return of automatically powering on favorite virtual machines

We removed this feature in VMware Fusion 4 and you really wanted it back. Virtual machines can now be powered on automatically when VMware Fusion starts. This can be set for each virtual machine under Settings > General.

Faster than ever!

We’ve worked top to bottom to make VMware Fusion even faster. A few of the improvements are:

Greatly improved graphics performance for Internet Explorer 9 with hardware accelerated graphics are up to 6x faster than VMware Fusion 4.

• Improved rendering correctness in Solidworks 2012.
• Improved graphics performance when using Mac OS X 10.7.2.
• Improved animations for full screen mode, unity mode, library and snapshots.
• Improved startup time with Windows 7 virtual machines.

OS X Lion as a guest just got better.

Improved Mac OS X Lion virtual machine support including smoother mouse movement and support for FileVault 2 when using Mac OS X 10.7.2 and later.

See the release notes for more details on other fixes:

http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion4/doc/releasenotes_fusion_41.html

Update to VMware Fusion 4.1 Today!

If you already own VMware Fusion 4, you will be prompted to install the free update to VMware Fusion 4.1 on your next launch or select Check for Updates from the VMware Fusion menu.

After downloading and installing VMware Fusion 4.1, make sure to update VMware Tools in the Virtual Machine.

Try VMware Fusion 4.1 Today!

If you would like to try VMware Fusion 4.1, click here to download a free 30-day trial.

Thanks for your support!

As we approach this Thanksgiving holiday in the US, we can’t thank you enough for your support and we hope you enjoy using VMware Fusion 4.1 as much as we did making it.

Today Macworld released their higly anticipated review of VMware Fusion 4. We are extremly excited about the great feedback in the article. So we thought we would use take a minute to share some key points.

  



Below are some highlights of the review

Running Windows

"Generally, using Windows 7 in Fusion 4 was marked by an absolute lack of drama. Applications simply ran—and ran well. I had no crashes, and the occasional Windows update installed without trouble. I played some high definition video clips in Windows Media Player, and they played back with clear video and stutter-free audio. In short, Windows 7 and Fusion 4 work very well together."

Other operating systems

“VMware also has a collection of nearly 2,000 downloadable virtual appliances (ready-to-run configurations of operating systems and/or applications), many of which are free of charge. After downloading, you can be up and running with these systems with a couple of mouse clicks.”

Snapshots

“This feature is incredibly useful; using it, you can create unique virtual machines within the same virtual operating system. You could, for instance, create an OS X virtual machine running OS X 10.7, save a snapshot, then install the OS X 10.7.1 update, and save that snapshot. You can then save additional snapshots off either the 10.7 or 10.7.1 "branches," keeping two distinct installations going.”

Macworld's buying advice

“Fusion 4 is a nice upgrade from Fusion 3; it's fast and stable, the interface is very Mac-like, and its drag-and-drop installation is about as easy as it gets. The redesigned virtual machine settings and library windows are great improvements over their predecessors...current Fusion 3 users should upgrade to Fusion 4 to take advantage of its new features and capabilities. If you're new to the virtualization market, or contemplating switching from another program, Fusion 4 works great for typical Windows office usage, and is a great solution if you're wanting to experiment with other operating systems.” 

Click the link below to check out the full review

http://www.macworld.com/article/163440/2011/11/vmware_fusion_4.html

Over the past year we have spent a great deal of time traveling around the country training customers and sales people on all the features of VMware Fusion 4. Without question the feature that always impressed people the most was Unity, and now with VMware Fusion 4, unity has been even further refined. With that said, let’s talk about how to enable and utilize Unity in VMware Fusion 4.

Unity Mode is a feature in VMware Fusion 4 that allows users to isolate individual Windows Applications and interact with them as though they were Mac Applications. This is perfect for those times that you want to run Windows programs side by side with Mac Apps. It’s also a great feature for those that want to have access to Windows Applications without having to interact with Windows.

You can enable unity in a few different ways.

To enable unity mode while you are in Single Window click the unity button.

To enable unity from from Full Screen, select unity from the Full Screen Menu Bar

Once you enable Unity you will see Windows fade away, and you are left with just your Windows applications, from here you can interact with your Windows Programs in exactly the same way you do your Mac apps.

You can use command tab to move between applications

Even save you Windows programs to the dock for instant access.

Once inside unity you can quickly access and launch additional Windows programs by clicking the Application Menu from the OS X Menu bar.  Simply type in the Windows program you are looking for and double click to launch.

New to VMware Fusion 4 is the ability to utilize Mission Control with Unity.  Simply swipe up on the track pad with three fingers to go into Mission Control.

If you would like additional information on how to best utilize Unity in VMware Fusion 4 check out the “Running Windows Programs Without Seeing Windows” video at the VMware Fusion Learning Center.

http://vmwarefusionlearningcenter.com/intro-to-fusion.html#9

We are extremely excited and proud to have received the Editors Choice awards by both MacWorld UK and PC Magazine for VMware Fusion 4. It’s great to see that all the work our developers have put in this release is being recognized.

We are also very excited by the recent Infoworld review:

Fusion significantly outperforms Parallels Desktop in all the other categories: 2D graphics (by 32.5 percent), 3D graphics (by 53.3 percent), memory (by 17.9 percent), and disk (by 7.7 percent).

We are aware of the recent benchmark analysis published by MacTech and you can rest assured that our engineers are looking closely at any test results where VMware Fusion is not as great as we would like it to be.

What we feel is important to keep in mind, as other journalists and reviewers have noted, is that virtualization benchmarks do not accurately represent real-world performance. 

We believe there are a lot of criteria to consider when choosing the best virtualization solution to run Windows on a Mac. Reliability, stability, user interface, features, technical support and value are all important when choosing a virtualization solution that meets your needs. 

Customer reviews are another great way to find out what other users are saying about VMware Fusion 4. Click the image below to see our reviews on Amazon:

Ultimately, nothing beats first-hand experience and we encourage you to go ahead and try VMware Fusion 4 today for yourself. 

www.vmware.com/go/tryfusion

If you love VMware Fusion as much as we do, please share your experience and let the world know!

In 2007, when David Swartzendruber decided to focus the engineering efforts of his company Eclipse INC toward the development of LED Lights, he was initially stuck at a cross roads. “I liked the idea of being able to use some of the more creative software that is native to the Mac, but still needed access to a few key Windows apps for engineering.” Once he discovered VMware Fusion, the decision was easy.          

When asked about his favorite feature in VMware Fusion 4 he said, “Unity is perfect for those times that you want to have a Windows and Mac Application side by side. It really gives us the best of both worlds. I also like the idea that we have the flexibility that comes with running Windows as a VM, while still being able to leverage the Mac OS for more creative endeavors.” About a year later Eclipse LED was born. They now engineer some of the brightest, most efficient LED lighting systems in the industry. Eclipse LED exclusively uses light emitting diodes as its lighting source– incorporating them into bike lights, flashlights, headlamps, and light bars for all terrain vehicles.  

As they progressed with VMware Fusion they also found a great cost benefit as well. “With the help of VMware Fusion, we have been able to stay lean as a business while not sacrificing any capability from a computing perspective. It’s like getting two computers for the price of one, and it’s also nice knowing that compatibility will never be an issue. With all of the advantages of VMware Fusion 4, Eclipse LED is that much more capable of creating the exact products their customers want. We are truly enthusiast of all the products we create, and the more capable we are at creating the best products possible the better. Without a doubt VMware Fusion plays a part in that.”

For additional information on Eclipse LED as well as how to buy their class leading bike lights, flashlights, headlamps, and light bars go to eclipseledcompany.com

VMware Fusion 4 Named “Editors Choice” by PC Magazine. 

The reviews are starting to slowly trickle in and we are extremely excited to share that we have been named Editors Choice by PC magazine. Giving us a rating of 4.5 out of 5, VMware Fusion 4 was put though a whole host of tests. Here are some excerpts from the review.

 In describing the installation experience. 

“Nothing could be easier than installing Fusion....Fusion’s New Virtual Machine Assistant walks you smoothly through the process of installing a new OS.”

Another notable piece was regarding business and more advanced customers.

“If you’re in a corporate setting or you expect to network your emulated Windows system with other machines, then Fusion is probably the better choice. It’s also the better choice if you’re using legacy apps under Windows XP in an emulated system, because, in my tests, Fusion handled those apps more reliably.” 

PC Magazine concluded by saying,

“Fusion strikes us as preferable to Parallels for expert and experienced users...Fusion gets our Editor’s Choice award.”

Check out the entire PC Magazince review at the link below

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357317,00.asp#fbid=JLDVqsDE1KD

The fine folks at Tap! The iPhone & iPad magazine in the UK have just released a great new iPad app for delivering Tap! magazine to the UK and rest of the world. The new Tap! app takes advantage of all the power of an iPad application, with embedded product videos and spinnable product photos, and much, much more.

To build this most excellent app, they are using the standard developer iPad tools from Apple. One of the challenges they faced was that their managed corporate Macs are locked down, which makes it difficult to update to the latest iOS development tools as soon as Apple releases new versions, and both limits flexibility in the development process and slows the process down.

So, they are using VMware Fusion 4 and taking advantage of our great new feature of running OS X Lion in a virtual machine. By creating their iPad development environment in a OS X Lion virtual machine, they have the ability to quickly and easily modify their development environment as needed, while not compromising the stability, security and reliability of the corporate Macs.

They have created a production workflow where they use standard file sharing in the OS X Lion VM to make the iOS simulator folder available on the host Mac so designers to copy in their files for production from InDesign, Photoshop, and whatever other tools they need to create the iPad issue.

They can then compile and test the new issue in the iOS simulator and could push it to the App Store right from their iOS development OS X Lion virtual machine.

"VMware Fusion 4 gives us the flexibility we need to build our innovative iPad magazine that is actually itself created in the iPad simulator," says Christopher Phin, Tap!'s Editor. "It makes it easy to create a contained, easily managed and backed up development environment that we can have do everything we need to help make the best magazine app experience possible."

Deputy Art Editor Chris Hedley added: "Any concerns I had about performance and integration were completely laid to rest when I started using the Lion VM alongside my host OS; the VM runs beautifully and the integration is seamless."

If you want to get the most out of the latest apps and gadgets for your iPhone and iPad, we recommend checking out the Tap! magazine app in the App Store, and we are delighted that VMware Fusion 4 helped make it possible.

Check it out now!

@dmedrick asks: "For a single user, can I install 1 copy of fusion on both my iMac and MacBook Pro or do I need two separate Fusion licenses?"

Starting with VMware Fusion 4, personal users only need one license to install on all the Macs you own. If you're a business or educational institution you'll need one license for each copy of VMware Fusion. The relevant excerpt from the VMware Fusion 4.0 license agreement says:

You may install and use the Software for personal, non-commercial use on any Apple-branded products running Mac OS X (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control.

If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, you may install and use the Software on a number of Apple-branded products running Mac OS X (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control equal to the number of licenses purchased.  Installing and using the Software on multiple Mac Computers with a single license is prohibited even if the computers are not running the Software concurrently.

VMware Fusion 4 upgrades are available now for a promotional price of $49.99. New users can take advantage of the same promotional pricing until the end of December 2011.

Microsoft decided to piggy-back on the excitement generated by the launch of VMware Fusion 4 and VMware Workstation 8 by announcing the Windows 8 Developer Preview yesterday. Microsoft's preview has seen plenty of coverage on-line and the VMware Personal Desktop team is in Southern California to learn more about the future of Windows.

VMware Fusion 4 is a great choice if you want to try Windows 8 for yourself. Many users are running both OS X 10.7 (Lion) and the Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview on their Mac. By running in a virtual machine you can isolate the new code from your documents and other Windows applications. You can even use the new snapshot viewer to experiment, then roll-back to a known good state, if something goes wrong.

VMware Fusion 4 is available today, download your trial from vmware.com.