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VMware Fusion 2

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From: Smith Micro Software Inc.

List Price: ~~$79.99~~
Buy New: $62.99
You Save: $17.00 (21%)

New (11) Used (2) from $60.00

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

48 reviews
Sales Rank: 2

Format: Cd-rom
Platform: Mac Os X Intel
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Mac OS X Intel
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.3 x 1.2

MPN: VMFM20BX2
Model: VMFM20BX2
UPC: 717103883675
EAN: 0717103883675
ASIN: B001F5VBRU

Release Date: October 5, 2008
Availability: Pre-Order (0-0 Business Days)

Features:

•	Run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X without rebooting
•	Run Windows applications across multiple screens; instantly launch Windows applications from any Mac file, the Dock and more
•	Use Expose to switch between Windows and Mac applications; minimize Windows applications to the Dock
•	Run 3D games, design software and other graphics-intensive apps with support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D hardware-accelerated graphics
•	Use Windows-only USB devices on your Mac, including GPS receivers, cell phones, PDAs, and iSight cameras

Get the best of both worlds.

Moving to the Mac is easy.
Getting started is a breeze. Import your existing Windows PC with VMware Converter, or easily install a new Windows OS in a few simple steps with Windows Easy Install.

Graduate from Boot Camp.
VMware Fusion is the perfect complement to Apple's Boot Camp. No more choosing between Mac or Windows on boot; run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X from your existing partition. And when you're ready, import your Boot Camp partition to reclaim extra space and enjoy great features such as Snapshots, AutoProtect, and Suspend and Resume.

3D for you and me.
Run 3D games, design software and other graphics-intensive apps with support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D hardware-accelerated graphics.

Displays for days.
Use Windows applications across as many displays as you please--up to eight screens.

Mac to the core.
Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion works the way you expect with customizable tool bars, Quick Look integration, searchable Apple help and more.

Airbags for your Mac.
Take snapshots of your Windows installation, and always have the option to roll back to a safe state in case of trouble. And with AutoProtect, automated snapshots let you easily go back in time to before problems occurred.

USB without limits.
VMware Fusion lets you use Windows-only USB devices on your Mac--from GPS receivers, to cell phones, PDAs and even Apple iSight cameras.

Keep the bugs away.
To keep Windows XP and Windows Vista on your Mac as safe as possible, VMware Fusion includes a complimentary 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus.

Maximize your Mac.
Take your Mac to the max by running virtual machines with up to four virtual CPUs, 8GB of RAM and with 64-bit operating systems.

Features:

Seamlessly integrate Windows applications with the Mac
Instantly launch Windows applications from any Mac file, the Dock and more
Run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X without rebooting
Minimize Windows applications to the Dock
Use Expose to switch between Windows and Mac applications
Import an existing PC with VMware Converter
Install new Windows OS with Windows Easy Install
Run Windows applications across multiple screens
Use Windows-only USB devices on your Mac, including GPS receivers, cell phones, PDAs, and iSight cameras
Run 3D games, design software and other graphics-intensive apps with support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D hardware-accelerated graphics
Winner of more than a dozen industry awards

Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Vast Improvement Over Older Mac/Windows Solutions October 23, 2008
Nix Cadavre (Michigan, USA)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful

I started out using Parallels, the competition for this product. It was good, but ran a bit sluggish on my MacBook. I liked the way it handled my Boot Camp partition, but I hated the way it hogged memory and handled graphics. As a trial product, I found little need to keep it.

Then I tried the first version of VMare Fusion. It seemed to be about the same as Parallels, with some minor differences. It handled my Boot Camp partition and did some things better, but other things worse. Again, I used the trial, and I decided against keeping it and went back to rebooting into Boot Camp.

Now here we are at VMware Fusion 2. This is a vast improvement over previous products. The memory management is better, the graphics run better, and the setup is easier. It loads much faster than any other solution for Windows on a Mac.

My experience has been mostly good. VMware 2 did give me some trouble at first, though. The serial number is on the CD sleeve, and they don't make it clear that that's where they put it. It took my shuffling through the box and paperwork a few times before I thought to look at the sleeve, which I had sitting near the computer while the disc was in the drive. Duh. I think they probably should have put the serial number in the manual, but I guess the sleeve was the first place I should have looked.

Anyway, once I got it running, I had trouble getting it to work with Boot Camp. It saw my Boot Camp partition, but upon trying to run it, I got a "no media" error. After messing around for a while, looking through help, and digging around online, I finally gave up trying to get past this problem and just installed a new Virtual Machine from my Windows XP disc.

Installing Windows was a breeze. Easier, even, then when you do it on your own. VMware made all the choices and did all the work. When it was done, the hard part came: Updating Windows. Ugh. This reminded me why I rarely use Windows! After that, the next thing was activation (Cross your fingers. Hope MS doesn't reject it.) and then installing supplemental software.

One of the nice things about VMware Fusion 2 is that it includes a one-year subscription to McAfee Virus Scan Plus, which is pretty much necessary for Windows (another reason why I prefer to stay in OS X). It installed McAfee pretty easily, and VMware Tools went on without a hitch. For good measure, I loaded up the Boot Camp drivers disc, to make sure all the components were working.

Once it was all up and running, it worked great. Now, with a MacBook and it's Intel GMA video chipset, I don't have any illusions about playing Crysis in VMware Fusion 2. That's not going to happen, but that's fine (I have a console for that sort of gaming, anyway). What it does let me do is use Windows for video, audio, websurfing (ONLY if necessary. I consider it risky.) and light gaming. I can now play Gazillionaire or Deus Ex again. I can run Office for Windows if I need to. Most applications that aren't 3D graphic hogs work fine.

I like that I can share the contents of my Mac and virtual Windows XP with each other. That's something I couldn't do with Boot Camp. Now, instead of having to move files back and forth, I just pull them out of the Mac side of things and use them when needed in Windows.

VMware Fusion 2 allows you to set a hard drive size, or leave it open and flexible. The latter option is slower but gives you the freedom to shrink the drive space for your virtual machine if you so desire. The former is faster, but ends up always taking up the space you allocate. I went with the first option, and did away with my Boot Camp partition entirely to make up the lost space on my hard drive. With Fusion 2, I don't think rebooting over to Windows would be an attractive option, anyway. It's much easier to just click the VMware icon and get into Windows that way without ever leaving OS X.

For MacBook users, I would suggest having a bigger hard drive and maxed-out RAM. I'm running with 4GB of RAM, and it works well if I allocate at least 1GB to the virtual machine. I'd imagine new aluminum MacBooks will be great with this product, considering their better graphics chipset.

This is the one. Forget Parallels. VMware is getting it right with this iteration of their product.

5 out of 5 stars

Smooth and the program gives access to PC programs October 21, 2008
M. Ash
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

My daughter, the resident techno geek, installed the VMware Fusion 2 virtual machine program on our iMac yesterday. After installation she played Guild Wars and Oblivion using the virtual machine. Guild Wars ran fairly well and both the audio and video was smooth. Oblivion, which is a memory hog, didn't fare so well. It crashed the virtual machine. So it was a no go for Oblivion.

Today, I fired up the VMware Fusion 2 virtual machine and used it to run Mastercook. I love Mastercook and was sad to quit using the program as it does not run on a Mac. Low and behold, I was up and running Mastercook through the virtual machine. The program ran smoothly, relatively quickly, and I was so pleased to have my old friend back.

Our Mac runs at 2.16 ghz and has 1 GB memory. By the way, our Mac is a Intell Core 2 Duo machine.

Also, the virtual machine accessed Boot Camp on the partition, for all the Mac geeks who are interested. The partition access was done automatically.

We have used both Parallels and VMware Fusion 2 and we much prefer the Vmware Fusion 2 program.

Overall, we are very pleased with this software. It was very easy to install, as my daughter says it was a couple clicks, and she was done.

Note: Yesterday I ran into a minor problem using the VMware Fusion 2 virtual machine. I tried to print out sewing patterns using the virtual machine. The sewing pattern pieces did not print correctly using the virtual machine. I had to print the patterns directly through Boot Camp.

I am still very pleased with the ease of use with this software program. It is rare that I have to go to the "dark side" but when I do the VMware Fusion 2 makes the swap easy.

5 out of 5 stars

A huge fan October 16, 2008
Rick Lobrecht (Pearland, TX United States)
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

I've been using Fusion for a while, but Amazon did send me a copy for free as part of their Vine program.

I've been using VMWare on and off for almost 10 years. In my work environment, I've used VMWare Workstation, Server, and Player mostly in a software development and testing environment.

In my home network, I used VMWare server for a while, hosting various Linux and Windows "servers."

Earlier this year, I bought my first Mac. I knew it was the right choice for the things I use a computer for personally, but I did have a few challenges. I use iLiumsoft's eWallet, which there isn't a Mac version for (at least not yet.) I also use Exchange for my personal email, and Entourage is no Outlook. If I wanted a complete Exchange experience and the ability to access all my passwords on the Mac, I needed to have Windows available, also.

Enter Fusion. At its core, Fusion enables you to run Windows on your Mac computer, at the same time as OSX is running. This is different than Boot Camp. That's right Windows is running right next to your Mac apps. Fusion has a bunch of cool Mac features that I haven't seen in the Windows VMWare products. Unity mode is very cool. In normal mode, your Windows computer lives inside a window, kind of like a remote desktop connection. In Unity mode, the entire Windows environment disappears, and you just have the apps. Fusion 2.0 also brings a bunch of little Mac usability tweaks.

Fusion is a requirement for any Windows to Mac switcher, and I suspect most Mac zealots will find a lot to use it for as well.

5 out of 5 stars

works perfectly for me -- but be sure you have the hardware for it October 24, 2008
Neurasthenic (New York City, New York)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

I run almost everything on my Mac, but there are a few applications that don't exist there. For example, Bloomberg client software is available only on Windows, and software that relies on the Bloomberg API needs Windows too.

I initially used this software on a Mac Mini with a 1.83MHz Core Duo and 1Gb of RAM. This met the requirements specified by Smith Micro, but it was *not enough* and Windows XP ran painfully slowly. Upgrading the RAM to 2Gb and swapping in a 3Ghz Core 2 Duo made an enormous difference.

While on the slower machine, I used VMware Fusion to run Windows in its own environment. After upgrading, I switched to the "Unity" environment, in which Windows applications run side-by-side with Mac applications under Mac OS X. It works nicely.

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent product; great Mac integration of Windows or Linux October 16, 2008
L. Williams (Clearwater, FL, USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Yes, while we Mac devotees love our computers, it's sometimes necessary to run a program that is only out for the Windows platform. I personally use Windows and Internet Explorer to view web sites that I've created to make sure they look good in both Mac and Windows environments. VMWare Fusion is a superlative product that makes Windows installation on the Mac completely seamless and intuitive. Fusion 2.0 has brought some welcome enhancements for making it possible to work in both environments at the same time, transfer files between OS's, and have Windows apps work nearly as well as native Mac apps. I was very pleased with Fusion 1's ability to automatically set up Internet connections, and version 2 has retained this ease of use. The only problem I've run into is that I haven't been able to have Windows find and recognize my 2 printers connected to the network. I'm in the process of debugging this, and in Windows it's a nightmare of drivers, network setups and arcane protocols--but this is not Fusion's fault. The only thing that VMWare could improve on is somehow automatically finding and copying network printer data from the Mac and copying it into the Windows environment, but I don't even know if this is possible.

When Mac users need to go over to the dark side temporarily, or for games or productivity software not available for the Mac, Fusion 2.0 will be a pleasant experience in making your Intel Mac a dual OS demon. Through Fusion you can also load various flavors of Linux and Unix if you're so inclined. As for speed concerns, any of the Intel-based Macs can run Windows at speeds worthy of any Dell, HP or Asus. VMWare has done a marvelous job and rates 5 stars easily in this improved version of Fusion.

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