VMware: Team Fusion: 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 1^st 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.

From our Team Fusion blog: Windows 7 on Mac with VMware Fusion: A Practical Guide

There’s been a lot of buzz flying around about Microsoft’s next big operating system, Windows 7, which just entered public beta.

As
our readers know, a great way to start testing out a new operating
system is in a virtual machine, where you can see how it works without
having to dedicate a whole physical machine. 

Well guess what: this is certainly the case with Windows 7 and VMware Fusion,
too.  So we wanted to take the time to share best practices on how to
make this happen, with screenshots and video of the process to make it
nice and easy for you.

The secret is to use the Easy Install but change the OS from Vista to Windows Server 2008. And in 20 minutes or so … enjoy.

Addendum: Rich Brambley at VM /ETC seemed to have no trouble installing the Windows 7 beta on VMware Workstation 6.5 by setting Vista as the OS, so not sure which way is best if you're on that platform. Check the VMware Communities for Workstation or Fusion if you're having trouble.

The VMware Fusion team just wrapped up another successful Macworld. I'm sure Pete and Pat will tell us all about it at the Team Fusion blog shortly, but here are just a few recent news items on the state of the virtualization on Mac and Windows on Mac world.

First of all, we're excited to report that NPD ("the leading global provider of consumer and retail market research information") is reporting that VMware Fusion is the #1 selling virtualization software for the Mac, and in October we were at 59% of the market to Parallels 39%, and we were at 53% for the year. Link:
Macworld.Ars: VMware Fusion takes #1 retail spot in 2008

Kazanjy and group product manager Pat Lee emphasized that Fusion
basically went from a zero percent market share in August of 2007 to 53
percent a little over a year later. "We think the market is coming of
age right now," Kazanjy told us. "Though positive reviews from big
sites and pundits are still helping us out, positive user reviews are
what's taking us to the next level. People really like what they're
using."

I'll vouch for the customers speaking for themselves. Over and over on Twitter, I see people asking for advice on which to buy, and the overwhelming advice is to buy Fusion.

Another award I was particularly impressed by was that VMware Fusion was determined to be the #1 most loved software product on Amazon. You can't buy or give away stuff for that kind of rating. Of course, Fusion also got a second consecutive Macworld Editor's Choice Award (Eddy), which ain't too shabby either.

For more on the Fusion state of the union, check out Pat Lee's post from last week: VMware: Team Fusion: As we prepare for Macworld Expo 2009, a look back at 2008….

2008
was an amazing success for the VMware Fusion team thanks to your
support. We can't thank the Mac community enough for how you have
embraced VMware Fusion to date and we look forward to making 2009 an
even better year for Mac users running Windows and other operating
systems on their Mac.

And I'm not only blogging about it, I'm a customer too. I use Fusion every day to run Windows on my Mac and it's rock solid and doesn't make my MacBook Pro sweat at all.  Find out more about VMware Fusion today.

(And don't tell the product team I told you this, but even though you
just missed the competitive rebate, there are lots of deals and coupon
codes out there to pick up a good deal — just look around. And there is also the 30-day eval to get you started right now. So there's really no excuse if you've been thinking about trying VMware Fusion!)

VMware: Team Fusion: Come Visit VMware Fusion at Macworld.

What We’ll Be Up To

We’ll
be demoing VMware Fusion 2 on five demo stations, handing out “My Mac
Loves VMware” laptop and bumper stickers, and doing presentations in
our theater.

Even better, we’ll have some special guests in our theater.  Every day at 2PM, Joe Kissell from Take Control Publishing, will be presenting tips and tricks from his awesome book “Take Control of VMware Fusion 2”, the quintessential power user’s guide to VMware Fusion 2.

So
if you would like to come say hi, whether you’re a curious would-be
user, a current customer, press, partner, or so on, our booth is the
place to be.  We’ll have something for everyone.

I think Workstation is 25% off with the same code as well.

Link: VMware: Team Fusion: One Day VMware Fusion Madness: 50% off VMware Fusion. Combine with Competitive Rebate.

From 12:01 AM Pacific Time (well, I think it actually
might be live right now) on December 1st, 2008 through 11:59 PM, 24
hours later, VMware Fusion will be on sale for 50% off, worldwide.

 

That’s
right.  Using the coupon code “CyberMondayDeal” at checkout, you can
buy VMware Fusion at half off its typical list price.

 

What’s more, in the United States and Canada, this deal combines with our $30 competitive rebate for Parallels and Virtual PC for Mac users. On top of getting Fusion for half off, you can get $30 back when you prove ownership of a competing product.

 

So yes, you heard that right.

 

People interested in running Windows on the Mac, can do so with Fusion for half price, all day tomorrow.

 

And people interested in switching from Parallels and Virtual PC to VMware Fusion can do so for as little as $9.99.

 

Snapshots are not particular tricky, but they are often misunderstood, on both the hosted and the VI side. (I just had to clean up a huge Fusion snapshot that was really difficult — I tried to commit my snapshot (merge it back into the base image) by deleting it, but I didn’t have enough space left to make the new clean file. Oh well, I didn’t need those iMovie files anymore.)

Link: VMware: Team Fusion: Bonus Tip: Snapshots.

People sometimes get confused about how snapshots work and how to use them. While snapshots are incredibly useful for many things, one major misconception is thinking that they are a form of backup – they’re not! If a lightning strike totally fries your computer, a snapshot won’t help if it’s on the same disk (because your snapshot just got fried too). Sure, you’ll probably get lucky – if your computer merely shut down uncleanly, your snapshot may still work. You might not even need to go use the snapshot. But this is not a backup, it’s gambling.

Link: VMware: Team Fusion: Windows Gets Even Better on the Mac with VMware Fusion 2: 100+ New Features, Free Upgrade for Existing Users.

We’re proud to announce that VMware Fusion 2 is now available. …

VMware Fusion 2, a free, downloadable upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x customers, adds over 100 new features and enhancements including:

More Seamless with Unity 2.0:
Application Sharing, Link Handling, Mirrored Folders, Driverless
Printing, True Multiple Display Support, and Custom Keyboard Mapping.

Safer Windows on Mac
experience with AutoProtect automated snapshots and a 12-month
complimentary subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus security software
for Windows XP and Vista

More Power
with DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 3D graphics, 1080p HD video
playback, Multiple Snapshots, 4-way vSMP, and Better Linux Support
(Unity & Easy Install)

More Mac-like,
More Mac-friendly with all new Welcome Screen, Virtual Machine Library
and Virtual Machine Settings, Cover Flow and Quick Look integration,
and Apple Help

Finally, Mac OS X Leopard Server now is supported in a virtual machine on Mac hardware

With Desktop Virtualization and Unity, it really doesn’t matter what operating system your applications want to run on. Case in point: the new Google Chrome browser, which is only Windows-flavored for the moment. Link: VMware: Team Fusion: Google Chrome for Mac: It’s Already Here, and It’s Smoking Fast.

Safari 3.1.2:

 

 

Firefox for Mac 3.0.1:

 

Google Chrome Beta on VMware Fusion:

What’s even cooler, is that if you wanted to, using VMware Fusion 2’s Application Sharing features (you can watch a demo video here) means that you could make Google Chrome your default browser for *all* web links you click on in your Mac.