Team Fusion

Many VMware Fusion users have been wondering how VMware Fusion 2.0.5 fares on Snow Leopard, and we’re proud to report that VMware Fusion 2.0.5 now offers experimental support for the Snow Leopard when running the default 32-bit kernel!

Of course, we kept up with the pre-release seeds of 10.6 and done a great deal of testing of VMware Fusion 2.0.5 and found that it worked well on the default Snow Leopard install (the 32-bit kernel which runs both 32-bit and 64-bit applications). However, there was always the minor chance that something could change before the final version of Snow Leopard.

Our initial testing of VMware Fusion 2.0.5 with the final release of Snow Leopard has gone very well, but we are still running our full suite of tests on the final Snow Leopard release just to be sure.

Just so you know, I’m writing this blog post in Windows XP virtual machine on an iMac running VMware Fusion 2.0.5 on Snow Leopard and it works great.

If you are using an older version of VMware Fusion, download the FREE upgrade to VMware Fusion 2.0.5 in order to run your virtual machines on Snow Leopard

UPDATED : So, what is the story with 64-bit Snow Leopard?

Apple is promoting the 64-bit transition in Snow Leopard now that all Apple applications included with Snow Leopard, like Calculator, to Finder, and Windows Server are ported to 64-bit. According to Apple, all included Apple applications are now 64-bit for higher performance, but the default kernel for every Mac except the Xserve is the 32-bit kernel. So, even though you are running the 32-bit kernel by default, the rest of Mac OS X Snow Leopard is running in 64-bit mode for better performance.

VMware Fusion 2.0.5 offers experimental support for the default install of Snow Leopard, which runs both 32-bit applications and the new faster 64-bit applications on the default 32-bit kernel.

In addition to the default Snow Leopard install, which is the 32-bit kernel with support for 32-bit and 64-bit applications, Snow Leopard now offers a 64-bit kernel option that is available by default for Snow Leopard Server on 2008 and 2009 Xserves. The 64-bit kernel can be enabled optionally on a number of 2008, 2009 Macs

However, VMware Fusion 2.0.5 is NOT compatible with the optional 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server.  For most users, this will not be a problem, as the 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard only starts up by default only for Snow Leopard Server on 2008 and 2009 Xserves.

The transition to the 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard is a major undertaking and something that we are taking seriously as we plan future products. If you are interested in beta testing future versions of VMware Fusion, click here to sign up.

Checking if Snow Leopard is running the 32-bit or 64-bit kernel

If you are not sure which version of Snow Leopard you are running, it’s really easy to check:

1) Select About this Mac from the Apple menu

2) Click on More Info to open System Profiler

3) Click on Software and check the “64-bit Kernel and Extensions” option. If you are running the 64-bit Kernel, it will say “Yes”, if you are running the 32-bit Kernel it will say “No”.

How to Switch from 64-bit to 32-bit Snow Leopard

If you found that your computer is running the 64-bit version of Snow Leopard and you need to run your virtual machines, it’s really easy to switch it to the 32-bit kernel. Simply restart your computer holding down the “3” and “2” keys on the keyboard

Enjoy VMware Fusion 2.0.5 on Snow Leopard

Apple has worked hard on this revolutionary software, and we know many of you have been waiting eagerly for Snow Leopard (I've personally been waiting for the new Easy Text Selection feature in Preview to make highlighting text in PDF’s much easier).  We always want our customers to be able to use the newest software available, so we are pleased VMware Fusion 2.0.5 works well (though still experimental support for now) on Snow Leopard.

If you don’t have VMware Fusion yet, the VMware online store is having a limited time “10% Off” sale on VMware Fusion 2.  Save 10% instantly when you buy VMware Fusion today – offer expires 8/31/09!

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InformationWeek recently published their list of “Top 19 Mac Apps For Tight Budgets” and VMware Fusion was chosen app to run Windows on the Mac.

Mitch Wagner summarizes why Mac users on a tight budget need VMware Fusion.

The most common use is to run Windows and get access to proprietary Windows apps that are not available for the Mac … As if that's not cool enough, Fusion will let you do a few more things: You can share data between the "guest operating system" and the Mac. You can set some Windows apps to be the default app for specific kinds of documents. And you can run Windows apps in their own, separate windows on the Mac, so they look more like native Mac apps.

In addition to VMware Fusion, there are a lot of other great apps on the InformationWeek Top 19 Mac Apps list that I personally use daily including TextWrangler, Adium, Evernote, Things, and Tweetie. So, I highly recommend you check out the InformationWeek Top 19 Mac Apps list to find some great apps you may not be using today but should check out.

If you aren’t already using VMware Fusion, download a 30-day trial and see why VMware Fusion is the top app for running Windows on a tight budget.

I've been looking for a blogging tool to help with this blog for a while now.  No offense to TypePad, but their online tool was a little tough on me.  Some of the Team Fusion bloggers, like Ben Gertzfield, Regis Duchesne, and Shawn Morel swear by Red Sweater's Mars Edit. 

As I've pointed out in the past, for good or for bad, I, like fellow Fusion user Danny Sullivan, am a Windows user, living on Mac hardware thanks to VMware Fusion.  But for me, as someone who has too much stuff going on, and doesn't have a heckuva lot of time to go up a new learning curve, there's value in how certain Windows apps on VMware Fusion "just work" for me, from a UI standpoint (i.e. Windows UI cues have been burned into my reptile brain).

Windows Live Writer seems to be like that for me.  After having blogged a couple times about some of our users who are using Live Writer on Mac in a Windows virtual machine under VMware Fusion, I thought I'd give it a spin, in my own Windows XP VM.

So far, I'm loving it.  I'm a big fan of WYSIWIG, and Live Writer feels like a web-enabled version of Word, with some blogging stuff thrown on top.

I had a little fun with the screen shot above, in a moment of Friday morning geekiness, iterating the screen cap a couple times, so we could get a screen cap in a screen cap in a screen cap.  Enjoy!

Tech support guru Dave Taylor over at "Ask Dave Taylor" has a great post up about running Vista in a virtual machine on VMware Fusion.

Apparently he's had a lot of his audience asking him questions about VMware Fusion for running Windows on Mac, so he thought he'd do a post on Vista in a VM.

I love the screenshot he provided as proof of success.  Good old Solitaire:

Our friend Rob Griffiths over at Macworld magazine has a great post today about the intricacies of printing to a Mac printer from a Windows machine, either virtual or physical.

Lots of people know about Apple's Bonjour networking software and how it can be used to print on a Mac printer from Windows.   But what a lot of people may not know is that with some tweaking, even a non-Bonjour capable printer can be used to print from Windows, with the help of an additional Apple technology: printer sharing.

Check out Rob's post to get the lowdown.  One thing to note: if doing this from a Windows virtual machine on VMware Fusion, you're going to want to be in Bridged Networking mode.

And you can see more about printing in VMware Fusion virtual machines, and more about Windows on Mac, on our self-paced tutorials page here.

Team Fusion member Shawn Morel gave a killer talk at Wolf Rentzsch's C4 indie Mac developer conference last year.

The talk was excitingly named "Virtualization Vivisection" and gets into as much nitty gritty detail about x86 virtualization as you can probably get before you have to start paying tuition.

Some of the topics Shawn dives into (and some helpful links for you to follow as you go along with the talk)?

1. Virtualization history and basics going back to Popek and Goldberg and their seminal paper on virtualization.

2. Why the Intel architecture was such a challenge to virtualize.

3. How VMware did it back in 1998 (or, how the researchers who eventually founded VMware did it, and then how that became what VMware is today).

4. "Hijacking OS X" and other things that sound scary, but make VMware Fusion possible.

5. Intel's VT versus good old fashioned Binary Translation (BT)

6. Virtual devices (and why USB is a tough nut to crack).

7. PowerPC virtualization (and why it's probably not going to happen any time soon).

8. 3D Graphics in virtualization

9. Virtualized Mac OS X on Mac OS X (which is funny, because this talk was given months before the Fusion Team demo'd Mac OS X Leopard Server virtualized at Macworld)

And, of course, much, much more.  Thanks to Wolf and company for getting these talks up on Viddler:

Some other great talks at the event:

• Wolf himself on "Indie Ethos"
• Will Shipley on "Monster Marketing"
• Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater on "Application Acquisition"

All the cool interviews that took place at Macworld are slowly but surely making their way out of the woodwork.

NewMediaManitoba.tv had a chance to catch up with Pat, our fearless product manager, at Macworld, and talk a little bit about (that was pronounced "aboot" by the way) VMware Fusion and its features like Unity mode, Dual SMP, and how it helps users run Windows on Mac. 

Looking at this video's fantastic editing , especially in light of my own somewhat pedestrian video production attempts, is really quite impressive. Kudos to NewMediaManitoba.tv for making such great video podcasts.
 

Check it out!

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce the release of VMware Importer Beta 2, for the importation of third-party Mac-based virtual machines to run using VMware Fusion. 

We're especially excited about this release, as users can now import virtual machines created with Virtual PC 7.0 for Mac!

Even though we live and breath Intel-based Macs here on Team Fusion, it's important to remember that Intel-Macs have only been around for a little under two years now.

That means there's a lot of Mac users out there using Virtual PC 7.0 on their trusty PowerBook, iBooks, G4 and G5 Towers, and more.  When it comes time to upgrade to a shiny new Intel-Mac, well, we on Team Fusion want those users to have a smooth upgrade process to the most seamless way to run Windows on a Mac.

VMware Importer Beta 2 allows for the importation of Virtual PC 7.0-based virtual machines with the following operating systems:

1. Windows 2000 Service Pack 4


2. Windows XP Service Pack 2


3. Windows Server 2003

VMware Importer Beta 2 also lets users import virtual machines created using Parallels Desktop for Mac 2.5 and 3.0, including:

1. Windows 2000 Service Pack 4


2. Windows XP Service Pack 2


3. Windows Server 2003


4. Windows Vista

Check out the VMware Importer Beta 2 landing page here, and give it a whirl!

And, as always, users looking to convert a physical PC to run as a virtual machine under VMware Fusion can use VMware Converter Starter Edition to do just that in a snap.

Questions and comments are always welcome at the VMware Fusion community forums, where Fusion users come to talk Mac virtualization.

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It might not be a moose, but it's still pretty cool. VMware Fusion was named to Amazon's Editor's Pick "Best of 2007" list, along with other notables like Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, Dragon Naturally Speaking for Vista Ultimate (which will run under VMware Fusion) and more!

Amazon is a great partner, and we've always been happy to see ourselves consisently up on their constantly updated "Mac Software Bestsellers" (as of today, we're #4, just behind Microsoft Office 2008 and 2004 for Mac and Mac OS X Leopard...great company to keep!) all while gettting solid user reviews.

Thinking it's probably gonna be a tough row to hoe to get past Mac OS X Leopard and Microsoft Office for Mac, be it 2004 or 2008*. But a guy can dream, right?

*But why run Office for Mac, when you can run your current office for Windows, under VMware Fusion? ; )

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Combing through my Google Alerts this morning, I was pleased to see that VMware Fusion had garnered another positive product review in the blogosphere .

I was that much more excited when I clicked through, only to realize that the Alaskan Apple Users Group had awarded VMware Fusion their highest accolade for a Mac software product: the fabled "Five Mooses" (pictured above).

Excellent! The team is honored to add another positive highlight to the growing stack of reviews and award, and would like to thank the Alaskan Apple User's Group and the reviewer, Ronald Schoedel, for their support!

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