In this week’s tip we will walk through some of the new features in VMware Fusion 4.1
Smart Full Screen
New to VMware Fusion Fusion 4.1 is the all new Smart Full Screen.
To enable smart full screen simply click the full screen button in the Fusion menu bar.
Once you select full screen, VMware Fusion will automatically adjust to your current display settings and give you the full screen mode that makes the most sense.
If you are using a single display (i.e. a Mac Book Pro and not connected to a display) VMware Fusion will enable the Lion method for full screen, allocating a space for your Virtual Machine.
If you are currently using multiple displays on your Mac when you enable full screen, VMware Fusion will Automatically adjust full screen to allow you to take advantage of both displays.
More Control
Also new to VMware Fusion 4.1 is increased control from inside Full Screen. Now dragging your mouse to the top of the screen allows you to access the VMware Fusion toolbar and OS X application menu. You’ll notice there is a small delay from when you move the mouse to the top of the screen, to when you see the menu drop down. This is designed to make it easier to access the OS X Application Menu when running versions of OS X as a virtual machine.
Another cool new feature of VMware Fusion 4.1 is the Full Screen Minibar. This feature gives you quick access to commonly used functions of the Virtual Machine, such as, Suspend, Settings Menu, and Toggling between view modes.
To enable the mini bar go to View > Full Screen Minibar > Always Show/Automatically Hide and Show.
Auto Launch your Virtual Machine
Lastly, a popular new feature of VMware Fusion 4.1 is the ability to Automatically Power on a Virtual Machine. Simply launch VMware Fusion 4.1 and your favorite Virtual Machine instantly launches with it. To assign this setting to Virtual Machine go to Settings > General > and select “start automatically when VMware Fusion Launches.”
