VMTN Blog

I was all set to talk about the My Switch to VMware Fusion video contest. Over at the Team Fusion blog, Pete has posted some of the incoming videos -- I'm not sure I have a favorite yet.

But tonight we released VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 -- and announced that 2.0 would be a free upgrade  to all registered users.Link: More Displays. More 3D. More to Love: VMware Fusion 2.0 Public Beta 1 Now Available | Team Fusion.

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1.   

This public beta, a free download, boasts a handful of industry firsts for Mac virtualization, including true multi-display support for virtual machines and experimental DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration.

And after I watched this demo video, I knew that I'd need to post the Switch to Fusion videos later, because you should watch this one now. I laughed out loud after display # 4, and there were plenty of monitors to go.

Go visit

• VMware Fusion 2 Beta 1 home
• Blog post: More Displays. More 3D. More to Love: VMware Fusion 2.0 Public Beta 1 Now Available | Team Fusion
• VMware Fusion Beta Program community and download portal

Are you a switcher? No, not a switcher from PC to Mac, a group that includes Yours Truly, but that's a story for another time. Are you a Mac user that has switched from another method of running Linux or Windows on Mac (Boot Camp, Parallels, etc.) to VMware Fusion? If so, are you interested in switching to brand-new MacBook Air, with a copy of VMware Fusion included? Then we should talk.

Team Fusion is launching a something new: a "My Switch to VMware Fusion" video contest.

• To win the MacBook Air, you need to make a one minute video. The beauty of owning a Mac is that this is not hard. They've got a certain structure they want you to follow, so that all the videos will  work well strung together. In return, they'll send you a t-shirt, a bumper sticker and will link to your blog if you have one.
  
• If you don't want to make a video, but you have a blog, then go to town and simply write about switching to VMware Fusion. (Again, there are guidelines -- it seems Pete, our Fusion marketing manager, is channeling Steve Jobs on the control freak wavelength, but I promise you it'll all look cool in the end all linked up together.) Anyway, do that and you'll get a shiny "My Mac Hearts VMware Fusion" bumper sticker and a nice link to your blog. And the best blog post gets an iPod Touch.

OK, VMware Fusion users (i.e., you out there reading this) have already shown that you're open to using the best product -- and Fusion rocks as far as I'm concerned, and I use it every day. It is your moral imperative to make the world a better place and share your wisdom with your fellow human beings. It'll just take a minute to post something. And you could win an iPod Touch or MacBook Air, or at least be tricked out with a t-shirt and bumper sticker.

How bad could that be? Enter the My Switch to VMware Fusion video contest today.

--jtroyer

VMware: Virtual Reality is a new group blog from VMware that covers virtualization technology and the virtualization landscape. Its motto: "Setting the Record Straight One Post at a Time." Mike DiPetrillo checks in after a hectic day at Macworld and gives us four reasons to switch over to VMware Fusion. (I was there and can vouch for the hectic crowded VMware Fusion booth! -jmt)

Link: The Chaos (aka Macworld) Begins | VMware: Virtual Reality.

Today was my first day in the VMware booth at MacWorld 2008. Man was it crowded! What a show so far with Jobs announcing 4 great new technologies (my Apple TV thanks you). What really peaked my interest was all of the people coming by and asking what made VMware Fusion so much better than Parallels for Mac. Ed Baig from USA Today even got me on film talking about this very subject. So here's my personal (non corporate marketing) rundown on why I think we're better than Parallels. For what it's worth I used Parallels for a long time since VMware didn't have anything on the Mac. I loaded up Fusion since I work for VMware and decided to give it a try. The points below are what got me to switch. Yeah, I know, you say I would have switched anyways since I work for the company. Not true. I'm a technologist and use what works better. Anyhow, here's the list. For what it's worth I used Parallels for a long time since VMware didn't have anything on the Mac. I loaded up Fusion since I work for VMware and decided to give it a try. The points below are what got me to switch. Yeah, I know, you say I would have switched anyways since I work for the company. Not true. I'm a technologist and use what works better. Anyhow, here's the list.

As you can imagine, the VMware Fusion team was pretty excited when Apple modified their licensing to allow Mac OS X Leopard Server to run in a virtual machine on Apple hardware.  This is something our users have asked us for and we were interested in seeing as well.

Today, we are pleased to say that VMware is able to virtualize Mac OS X Leopard Server on Apple hardware using VMware’s proven Mac virtualization engine. We will be demonstrating this achievement with our “Mac OS X Server in a Virtual Machine” Technology Preview , at our booth at the Macworld Expo, and with the group of screenshots below.

Important thing to note: we are NOT showing off a “hackintosh,” using a modified version of the Mac OS X kernel.  This is completely legit; we are installing Mac OS X Server directly from a factory-sealed Apple DVD onto a virtual machine running only on genuine Apple hardware. This is true virtualization.

Mac OS X Leopard Server is not modified to run on VMware virtual hardware and uses Apple’s proven and shipping Leopard drivers for USB keyboard, USB mouse, IDE controller, LSI SCSI controller, High Speed USB 2.0 (UHCI and EHCI) controller, Intel e1000 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, and VESA video adapter. Sound is not working at this time, but we are working on it!

And since Mac OS X Leopard has moved to 64-bit, we are able to leverage VMware's proven 64-bit support to run Mac OS X Server at it's full potential, a feature that has been a VMware exclusive for more than three years.

It’s hard to express how excited we are to being showing this here at Macworld. While we can’t discuss specific product plans and release dates, we know that this is very important to Mac customers and will take this into account as we plan our future Mac products.

The one question we know we will get asked is will VMware support Mac OS X Server on non-Apple hardware. While this is only a technology preview today,  VMware works closely with Apple and respects their licensing policies and as such Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine will only be supported on Apple hardware per Apple’s license agreement.

Come by our Macworld booth and see Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine for yourself!  We’ll be demoing it all day, and distributing free evals of award-winning VMware Fusion !

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:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
• Windows XP Service Pack 2
• 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:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
• Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003
• 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.

The VMware Fusion team will be on site at the Macworld Conference and Expo, starting Tuesday, January 15th, 2008, running through the following Friday.

If you're a fan of Fusion, a fan of the Mac platform, or planning on coming to Macworld, come check out our Macworld landing page.

Submit a "Favorite thing about Fusion" customer testimonial, sign up for our Macworld email list to stay in the loop on doings at Macworld and after, and grab a floor map with the VMware Fusion booth highlighted!

Hope to see you there!

VMware Fusion has been given five out of five stars  by Macworld UK, and designated a Editor's Choice winner.

As writer Karl Hodge puts it:

Fusion impresses most in ‘Unity’ mode though. This allows you to run applications from your Windows installation directly on your Mac desktop. Though they still have the look and feel of Windows apps, they appear in your dock and behave like programs running in Mac OS.

Hodge concludes that:

With fast performance, ease of use and setup, this is a convincing entrant in the virtualisation market at a competitive price.

Thanks for the coverage Karl!

Douglas Brown of the virtualization website DABCC recently interviewed Pat Lee, Senior Product Manager for VMware Fusion, VMware's product for running Windows, Linux, and more than 60 other operating systems on Mac OS X. 

They talk about the launch of VMware Fusion 1.1, covering Leopard support, enhancements to Unity, and the more than 25 improvements in VMware Fusion 1.1. 

Check out the podcast here.

Also, check out what's new with VMware Fusion 1.1 at the VMware Fusion minisite.

Not four months out of the gate, and VMware Fusion, VMware’s virtual machine software for Mac OS X, has been nominated by the esteemed Macworld readership in the category of “Best Third-Party Software of the Year.”

The list of third-party applications has been narrowed to six final contenders, from the initial tsunami of reader submissions.

The ballot is located here, with the third party software section (and VMware Fusion!) located at the bottom of the page.

So, as they say, “vote early and often” (just kidding, one vote per Fusion fan, please) for VMware Fusion, the most seamless way to run Windows on your Mac ; )

 ~Your humble VMware Fusion team

p.s. And for those of you unfamiliar with VMware Fusion, check out our "famous for YouTube" demo below:

From VMware's Ben Gertzfield -- Google Tech Talk: Inside VMware Fusion - Infusion: The Fruit of Eris.

This week, I was invited by Amit Singh to present a Tech Talk at Google on VMware Fusion.  I decided to do something a little different and dig down into how VMware's goals of bringing people the apps they need wherever they need them is actually really similar to Google's “everything's a web app” strategy.

If you're a Mac programmer or are interested in how VMware approached developing for the Mac, go see Ben in action on YouTube:

Link: VMWare Fusion On Mac Delivers My Best Windows Experience Ever - The Apple Blog.

After installing Windows and Microsoft Office from a ghost image, I rebooted Windows XP from inside VMWare Fusion, and it was as if I had a brand new computer within a computer. Rather than the sluggishness I had expected from a virtual machine, working within Windows on my Mac was just as fast as it ever was on my Dell. Outlook connected with the company network and recognized my login credentials. Internet Explorer and Firefox, utilizing the Internet connection on my Mac, connected to the Web. I could even maximize the Windows OS to full screen (1440 x 900 on my laptop). While seeing a Windows desktop on my Mac was undeniably weird, I knew I had the world’s best Windows laptop on the planet.

The VMTN Blog's Chief Fusion Correspondent Pete writes:

VMware Fusion just launched last Monday, and the folks at CNET Labs are already hard at work doing some benchmarking.  They compared different ways of running Windows on Mac OS X, including Apple’s Boot Camp 1.3 Beta, VMware Fusion, and Parallels Desktop 3.0.  The results were pretty strong for VMware Fusion, and we’re happy to see how well VMware's newest virtualization product performed against the alternatives.

Results are here.

Fusion's Virtual SMP technology takes advantage of the multiple cores of the Mac Pro, and it really shows up in their "most taxing" multimedia benchmark where Fusion accomplished in around 15 minutes what it took Parallels Desktop almost an hour to do (874 vs 3260 seconds).

Check out VMware Fusion. It's the best reason to buy a Mac Pro.

When you think of Macs and virtualization, what pops to mind?

• What the hell is virtualization? (A: The ability to run another operating system in a virtual machine (VM) while still running Mac OS X)
• Oh, right, that’s what Parallels does. (Yes, but read on…)
• Wasn’t there an old Virtual PC product from Microsoft that they never ported over to Intel Macs? (You are truly old-skool. Fasten your seat belt – this is a rocket ship compared to older emulation products.)

Well regardless of what you think, there’s a new kid on the Mac virtualization block: VMware Fusion. And “new kid” isn’t exactly the right term. VMware pioneered x86 virtualization and has been doing virtualization for nine years now.  With Apple’s switch to Intel processors, all that experience can now be brought to your Mac.

Hold on to your mighty mouse, because when the granddaddy of virtualization turns its attention to your favorite MacBook Pro, you can do some crazy things.

These are some of our favorites:

• SWITCH! Want to leverage the digital lifestyle of your Mac but have one or two Windows applications that you can’t live without?  You don’t have to be locked in anymore.  Outlook, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Project, AutoCAD, Solidworks…you name it.  They all can run in a Windows virtual machine on VMware Fusion.  Bring your USB peripherals with you as you switch too; they still work.

• Walk and chew gum at the same time. With virtualization you are running, in effect, two computers at the same time when you run Windows on your Mac.  That can take some horsepower.  VMware Fusion’s mature technology means much less CPU overhead.  As Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal noticed, “VMware Fusion has a much smaller impact on the Mac’s overall performance [than Parallels.]”  With VMware Fusion, Outlook in your Windows virtual machine doesn’t slow down your Safari session running on Mac OS X.

• Use the full strength of your Mac hardware. VMware Fusion’s virtual SMP lets you assign up to two CPUs to a single VM.  Up to 8 GB of RAM too in a VM.  Want to test run the latest Oracle database in a 64-bit Linux VM, with 4 GB RAM and 2 cores?  Want to test SQL Server 2007 on Windows Server 2003 64-bit edition? You can do it.  Though you should probably be doing something else on your Saturday night.

• Reduce, reuse, recycle…your RAM. VMware pioneered memory page file sharing.  So running a VM in VMware Fusion takes up much less of your Mac’s memory than other virtualization products.  And it gets better the more VMs you’re running at once.  Five Windows XP virtual machines at a time doesn’t mean 5x the memory of a single XP virtual machine.  By sharing the sections of memory that are common between the VMs—like with common OSs— you can “over commit” memory.

• Run those Windows apps as if they were Mac apps. VMware Fusion’s Unity feature your Mac treats Windows applications like its own.  Windows applications show up in the Dock on launch and you can even minimize Windows apps down to the Dock too.  They fly around in Exposé, sport drop shadows around their edges, you name it.  As far your Mac is concerned, they’re native apps.

• Don’t lose your head (or your way) with USB 2.0 support. Got a GPS unit that doesn’t support Mac?  With VMware Fusion, just load the software in Windows and plug the USB cable into your Mac.  Blackberry, USB VOIP softphones, webcams, scanners, printers, all of the above.  You can still use them with a Windows VM.  Just because you want to switch, doesn’t mean you should have to say goodbye to near and dear peripherals.

• Bring that Mac into the enterprise. Usually there are a handful of applications that are absolute must-haves in the enterprise that are tying you to that PC.  VMware Fusion lets you run those in a Mac.  And VMware Fusion USB support means that the Crackberry monkey will still be on your back. VMware Fusion’s stability, and the amazing support network provided by VMware’s forums, make it a business-class solution. 

• Run over sixty x86 compliant operating systems on your Mac.  Linux, Solaris, Windows from 3.1 through Vista Ultimate x64.  32-bit or 64-bit.  VMware Fusion can run it.  In fact, VMware Fusion can run over 60 operating systems on your Mac.  Sure, Mac OS X is great, but why not learn some Linux, FreeBSD, or even turn back the clock to Windows 3.1. You can even drag and drop files between Linux and your Mac or Windows and your Mac.

• Go shopping for some appliances to match your pretty Mac.  There are over 550 virtual appliances available in the Virtual Appliance Marketplace, including pre-staged anti-spam and security appliances, demo software, you name it.  Pull one down, fire it up on VMware Fusion, and you’re up and running.  No install discs, .ISOs, or anything.  You can use those CDs for coasters, if you want.

• Frag some baddies.  Experimental 3D graphics support allows you to play select DirectX 8.1 games in a Windows XP SP2 virtual machine.  If you’re jonesing for some Duke Nukem or Tony Hawk, fire up VMware Fusion.  Doesn’t help you with the latest and greatest in 3D video games, but c’mon, you should be working anyway.

So with those top ten things in your back pocket, come learn more about VMware Fusion or...

Download the 30-day Free Trial of VMware Fusion!

And, of course, here’s the famous video demo of the Unity feature of VMware Fusion:

VMware Fusion is now generally available. I'll update this post with links to blogs and other quotes from the Fusion team as they come out.

Srinivas Krishnamurti on the Fusion release with some more background on packaging. Link: Elvis has left the building

While not quite Apple-esque, we felt that this was a clean look and conveyed the essence of our product.  We all felt that black background was more appealing than other colors we considered.  Perhaps the coolest and most unique part of this design is the front flaps that open in the middle on the front.  After spending an entire Sunday afternoon at Best Buy, I realized most software boxes either have no flaps at all or have a flap that opens like a book.  Boooring!  We didn’t want to be just another box.  We wanted to be proud of the box, just like we wanted to be proud of the software we have built.  The VMware Fusion box has two front flaps that open down the middle – think of the monitor opening up down the middle.  Each of the flaps has three screenshots showcasing the product while the middle of the box (once you open the flaps) has detailed description of the product.

Later: Regis Duchesne talks a bit about the beginnings of the project:

In January 2006, I started porting the VMware hosted virtualization engine to Mac OS X by myself. I had never touched an Apple computer before.

A year and a half later, we have built a world-class team of Mac engineers, and on behalf of the team I'm happy to announce the general availability of VMware Fusion 1.0.

Later II: Ben Gertzfield is really excited as well:

For the first time in my life, I use my own software every day.  And I love it. Pretty much everyone I know who's played with it has told me how it's become a part of their everyday life; as a software developer, those are the best words you could possibly hear.

What was really cool about creating Fusion was that the idea and implementation was completely driven by engineers from day one, and that VMware gave us humble coders the power to take it from proof-of-concept all the way to the svelte black box soon to be on the shelves at the Apple Store.  Most companies treat software developers like Lego bricks: identical, fungible commodities to be placed wherever the product requirements demand them to be.  But at VMware, engineers are given full leeway to design things right the first time, and that totally rules.

Later III: Shawn Morel on how the new UI was designed to be Mac-like:

I was the first UI developer to start working on what became Fusion along with a few senior devs hacking away on porting the virtualization platform and more devs joining us later in the effort to bring this product to market.

... We wanted to emphasize was that Fusion is not just a straight Workstation port. We re-designed (rather than re-wrote) from the ground up to meet the needs of Mac consumers. There was a lot that was written in a cross platform way that we were able to leverage. We could have even taken large parts of the GTK UI from Workstation on Linux and run that under X11 on OS X. We don’t think that would have been the optimal solution for our customers - we strongly believe that this is a different market segment. This was also a great opportunity to take a great product like Workstation and learn from the evolution it’s undergone over the years and start fresh; cut off some of the cruft, simplify and refine the user experience.

Walt likes it. I think he glossed over a lot of the differences, and the few features he wished he had are not bundled but are available elsewhere (for instance, VMware Converter).

Link: Personal Technology - WSJ.com.

But I found Fusion puts less strain on the computer overall. While I like Parallels and have used it since it came out, it sometimes slows down my Mac, especially when it is starting up Windows or performing some other major task. Fusion has a much smaller impact on the Mac's overall performance.

The new beta release of VMware Fusion is now available. From Srinivas Krishnamurti on the Console Blog, Update on VMware Fusion:

Later tonight you will have access to VMware Fusion Beta 4.  This final beta introduces features we are extremely proud of and ones that will showcase our attention to detail and quality of work.  The two features I wanted to highlight are: [Unity and a Customizable Toolbar].

Also, we moved the VMTN Fusion Beta Forum out into the public area since there has been so much interest. Go ahead, check out what's happening in the beta test.

Have fun. Scott seems to like it:

VMware Fusion Beta 4 has been released (get it here), and with it comes Unity.  In a word: Wow!  It’s pretty disconcerting to see Windows applications (like a command prompt, Internet Explorer, or Visio) running side-by-side with Camino, Mail.app, and NetNewsWire. Interleave windows?  Not a problem.  Drop shadows?  There. Minimization effects?  Yep.  Aside from the window decorations, you would be hard-pressed to tell which applications were running natively in Mac OS X or in virtualization.

And that, my friends, is the heart of what I described ages ago (OK, perhaps it only seems like ages ago) as application agnosticism. With virtualization technology and UI integration like this, who cares what OS an application is written for?  Of course, we still have a ways to go to fully realize application agnosticism, since Unity is only available for Mac OS X (not Linux or Windows), but this is a powerful step in the right direction.

Tony says: "VMware may have taken its time doing it but a sneak preview of Fusion oozes good design sensibility, with Windows integration that blows the pants off anything you've seen before. Move, resize and stack your Windows apps as if they were running directly on your Mac; it feels like you've liberated them from their ugly prison ;-)"

From product manager Pat Lee:

Since August, we have been talking about VMware desktop virtualization for the Mac, which is a mouthful to say the least. Today, I am very happy to announce the release of the third public beta of VMware Fusion™.

That’s right, we finally have a product name!

I am really excited about all the new stuff the Mac team at VMware has been working on lately to make VMware Fusion the easiest-to-use, most reliable way to run Windows and other Intel- and AMD- compatible operating systems on your Mac.

We have lots of very happy VMware Fusion users today with our beta 2 feature set. However, users keep begging us for a way to turn off debugging code so they can get the best performance that VMware Fusion has to offer. Based on overwhelming user demand and more importantly the lack of crashing bugs in Beta 2, VMware Fusion Beta 3 now gives you the option do turn off debugging code to experience better performance. You can turn off debugging code by going to the VMware Fusion > Preferences menu and un-checking "Enable debugging checks".  I am confident you will be very happy with the performance available in beta 3 with debug code disabled.

The other thing we keep hearing from the Mac community is that people have spent a great deal of time and money getting Windows XP installed on their Mac using Apple’s Boot Camp software. They don’t want to have to start all over again to take advantage of the power of virtualization. VMware Fusion Beta 3 now automatically detects your Boot Camp partition and lets you run a VMware Fusion virtual machine directly from the Windows XP Boot Camp partition. (We don’t support Microsoft Vista yet in Boot Camp with Beta 3 since Apple just announced Vista support last week, but we are working on adding support for this soon.)

I had the opportunity to speak to thousands of potential users at Macworld who wanted to run Windows applications, but they didn’t want to become a Windows guru just to install Windows on their Mac. VMware Fusion Beta 3 has you covered with Windows Easy Install. Just answer a few simple questions, insert your Windows CD and VMware Fusion will take care of the rest and create the optimal Windows virtual machine for your Mac.

Additionally, there are lots of smaller improvements that add up to an even better Mac user experience when working with virtual machines.

One of the coolest features of VMware Fusion is the ability to suspend a virtual machine to disk (so it doesn't take up any precious memory or processor cycles) with all your applications open to just where you want them. The great thing is that you can quickly resume and get back to using your applications without waiting for Windows to restart.  Wouldn't it be cool to know where you left off before you resumed? A short video is worth a thousand words.

The dialog formerly known as the Welcome screen has become the Virtual Machine Library with lots of great new features. Just drag in existing or new virtual machines to add them to your library, reorder your existing virtual machines using drag and drop, or use the Delete key to remove a virtual machine from your library. You can also open a virtual machine without powering it on to make configuration changes.

Finding the right file to double-click in a virtual machine's folder to start your VM is a thing of the past.  Now, new virtual machines are created in a single tidy bundle, just like Keynote presentations.  You can drag your virtual machine documents around, copy them, and make backups just like any other document.

Making your existing virtual machine directories into bundles is easy: just add ".vmwarevm" to the end of the directory name, and it instantly becomes a virtual machine bundle.  If you are using VMware on Windows or Linux, Mac virtual machine bundles are still fully compatible our other products -- they will just see your bundles as directories with ".vmwarevm" at the end of their names.

There have also been a lot of great new improvements to the New Virtual Machine Assistant. In addition to Windows Easy Install, VMware Fusion now remembers the last folder you chose to save your virtual machines and defaults to that folder any new virtual machines your create. In addition, it doesn’t let you proceed until you insert your operating system CD or disc image to start the install.

If you are a European or Japanese VMware Fusion user, you will be happy to know that beta 3 now correctly recognizes Japanese and European keyboards and they will work as expected in your virtual machines.

Just don’t take my word for it, go to the VMware Mac portal, download VMware Fusion Beta 3 and see for yourself.

Then join the Mac discussion forums to help us make VMware Fusion even better for you!

Since August, when we announced that we were bringing VMware desktop virtualization to the Mac, the VMware Mac team has been working hard to create the easiest-to-use, most reliable solution to run Windows and other x86 operating systems on your Intel Mac.

There has been a great deal of excitement around the Fusion public beta since it was released in late December, and we received a lot of positive feedback from the Mac community. Today, we are releasing the second public beta of Fusion, and it has some truly killer features!

One of the biggest feature requests we received from the many thousands of customers we spoke with at Macworld Expo was the ability to play games in a virtual machine. Well, I am happy to tell you that with Fusion Beta 2 you can play select DirectX 8.1 games in Windows XP virtual machines! Play Tony Hawk 3, Grand Theft Auto III, and other DirectX 8.1 games without restarting your Mac. See the release notes for a list of DirectX 8.1 games that we have tested and work well.

I am really excited about VMware Fusion’s new snapshot feature and I believe it will be a lifesaver for many customers! Have you ever had your computer working just the way you wanted only to install a new application or system update that made your computer completely unusable? This has happened to me many times, but with VMware Fusion, just take a snapshot of your virtual machine once you get it set up and working just the way you like, and if your virtual machine ever becomes unresponsive, you can roll it back to your perfect state in an instant.

We had a lot of questions about Vista support at Macworld Expo and had a great demo showing Vista side-by-side on Mac OS X. With Fusion Beta 2, we have greatly improved our Vista support so you can now copy and paste, drag and drop files, use shared folders, and have Vista’s screen resolution automatically change as the virtual machine window is resized just like you expect with all supported Fusion guest operating systems.  Whether you choose Vista Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate 32-bit or 64-bit editions, you can your choice side-by-side with Mac OS X with Fusion.

I am also excited that Mac OS X Leopard is coming later this year. If are you using the latest Mac OS X Leopard developer builds, you can now run your virtual machines side-by-side with Mac OS X Leopard. 

Thanks to the great feedback from the Mac community, we have made scores of improvements, including greatly improved networking support, so virtual machines will now switch seamlessly between wired and AirPort/Wi-Fi connections as you switch between network connections. Add virtual hard drives for more storage capacity, add up to ten virtual network interfaces to support private and public networks, and keep an eye on your laptop's battery level from inside your virtual machines.

Go to the VMware Mac portal, download Fusion beta 2 and join our Mac community in the VMware Fusion discussion forums to help us make VMware for the Mac even better!

Pat Lee
Senior Product Manager – Mac Products
VMware

This movie has been making the rounds. It shows off 3D graphics in VMware codename Fusion on a Mac. Let me clear up a few things.

• This has been an "experimental feature" of our product line since Workstation 5.0, released almost 2 years ago.
• It supports DirectX 8.1 with no shading. Regis, aka hpreg, tech lead of the Fusion team, says we're working on 9 and 10. My supposition is that Vista Aero is driving this, but being able to play games is certainly very nice side benefit on the desktop, since we usually cater to the server crowd.
• You can turn it on right now in Workstation in your vmx file with mks.enable3d = TRUE. (Read the linked docs for more info.)  I assume it will work in Player as well, but don't know about Server.
• In the video, the virtual machine had just 512 MB of virtual RAM and 1 virtual CPU, according to the poster. Although the video shows it in a window, it will work in full screen mode just fine, according to hpreg.
• In the Fusion beta discussion forums, hpreg has disclosed that this feature will been turned on a future beta. Fusion's engine is a port of the Workstation/Player/Server family.
• We don't comment on future releases, but the video shows a beta with the switch in a menu. I suppose at some point it'll be just turned on by default, but usually "experimental support" means that it works, but we'd like to put more QA on it before absolutely guaranteeing support. We are very anal retentive and careful about QA here, and we like to think it shows in the resulting product.

Everything clear? Questions should really go to the Fusion team, who hang out in the discussion forum. You do need to be registered to go to that link -- sorry, we probably need to rethink that -- but it just takes a second and is free.

Link: Macworld 2007 Show Floor Showoff: VMware - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

Virtualization is the new black in the Mac market these days. I got a chance to talk with Pat who is the product manager of VMware for the Mac (aka Fusion). VMware is the granddaddy of virtualization, and a 'big deal' in that space. Pat gives us an overview of what VMware is trying to do with Fusion and a glimpse at their software philosophy.

Also on YouTube:

• VMware Fusion for Mac OS X: screencast installing VMware Fusion on Mac OS X and running a Windows 2000 server virtual machine
• Vmware Fusion Mac Os X Public Beta: screencast running Windows XP Professional inside VMware Fusion
• VMware Fusion @ VMworld: Fusion lead Regis Duchesne gives a demo on the show floor. (Regis's blog CompFusion)

From Fusion's HPReg: CompFusion: Ship it.

If you want any of these:

• Learn more about global virtualization leader VMware
• Discover the power of Fusion
• Share your experience so far using the beta version of Fusion
• Chat with members of the Fusion team around a beer
• Win cool stuff
• Land a challenging Mac job at a fast-growing company

Then swing by VMware's booth S339. I hope to see most of you forum posters there!

Also: to get your Garmin working on your Mac (and here), try Fusion.

Fusion developer Régis Duchesne on our new Mac virtualization beta response and how to run headless virtual machines on the Mac (without any UI). Link: CompFusion: Buckle up!.

The corollary feature is that if you want to start a virtual machine headless in Fusion, all you have to do is open it up in the user interface, then go to the Apple menu and select the "Force Quit..." item.

This is the design philosophy we have adopted everywhere for Fusion:

• Keep the user interface dead simple and easy to use for users who use a Mac because they just want their computer to work.
• Expose the power of the VMware platform for technical users and developers.

Fusion developer Ben Gertzfield gathers together some of today's links to the new Fusion beta and goes over some FAQs. Remember, all the cool kids are hanging out at the VMTN Fusion beta forum.

Link: Fusion Feedback and Fixes - Infusion: The Fruit of Eris

I just wanted to point out a few of the more common issues folks have run into, and do a quick link rundown.

1. I can't use the mouse in my virtual machine!
2. I can't find my serial number!
3. I get a gray screen telling me to restart my Mac!
4. If I switch my virtual machine to Bridged mode, I can't access the virtual machine over the network from my host!

From CompFusion, the new blog of VMware's Régis Duchesne (HPReg): Good Day.

Exactly 1 year ago, after having spent 7 years at VMware, I wanted to do something new. My manager was nice enough to let me be the technical lead of the Advanced Project I submitted: porting our hosted virtualization engine to Mac OS. I cherry picked a surgical team of VMware engineers, some of them experts with the VMware code base, some of them expert Mac users.

4 months later, we had our first VMware virtual machine running on Mac OS, with a GTK+ user interface (borrowed from the Workstation product for Linux) running on top of X window. Management and marketing liked what they saw, and asked us to productize this. I came up with a codename for the project: Fusion.

From Infusion, the new blog of VMware's Ben Gertzfield: The excitement is building...

Everyone's got a joy in life.  Some folks build exquisite models of ships and shove 'em in a bottle.  Others whip up imaginative, fresh cuisine and share it with the world.  Me, I write code.  My personal joie de vivre is forging that easy, effortless bond between people and the electronic stuff they use every day to make their lives go—computers, cars, cell phones, you name it.

Over the past year, I've been crafting VMware Fusion for Mac, a killer piece of software that lets Apple-heads do the unthinkable: run Windows, Linux, or any other operating system right alongside their Mac applications.  This isn't your average Boot Camp, where you have to restart your computer every time you need to switch between Windows and Mac OS.  VMware is way cooler, and totally changes the way you use a computer.