- Virtualization vmware fusion mac how to#
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For example, the revised Settings panel (used to set each virtual machine’s options) resembles that of System Preferences, and is easy to understand and use.įusion 4’s virtual machine Settings window looks much like the OS X System Preferences window. It’d be really nice if it then unhid when you closed that virtual machine, but it doesn’t.įusion is a complex program, but Fusion 4 goes a long way to making that complexity easier to manage. This window hides itself when you launch a virtual machine, which is nice. The currently-selected virtual machine is clearly highlighted, so there’s never any question as to which machine will be affected by your actions. However, if you’re just looking for a safe place to test software, or to run as a user with none of your typical user’s add-ons, a virtualized Lion environment is a great way to get those things done. Other limitations running a virtualized copy of OS X: You can’t use more than one monitor or video acceleration of any sort. However, a video chat via FaceTime worked fine, as did a video call in Skype. (Image copy-and-paste works in both Windows and Linux virtual machines, but not in OS X VMs.) An attempted video chat in iChat didn’t work the iSight camera appeared as a tall thin black box, without any video in it. I could copy and paste text between the virtual and real OS X environments, but not images.
Virtualization vmware fusion mac pro#
I installed Lion on both my 2006 Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro, and it worked well enough on both, with some limitations. (If you didn’t keep a copy of this file, you can download it again.)
Virtualization vmware fusion mac mac os x#
To do so, you simply point Fusion’s new virtual machine assistant at the Install Mac OS X Lion.app file that you get when you purchase Lion from the App Store. New in this release of Fusion is the ability to install OS X Lion itself as a virtual machine. Windows isn’t the only OS you can run under Fusion. In short, Windows 7 and Fusion 4 work very well together. I played some high definition video clips in Windows Media Player, and they played back with clear video and stutter-free audio.
Virtualization vmware fusion mac update#
I had no crashes, and the occasional Windows update installed without trouble. Generally, using Windows 7 in Fusion 4 was marked by an absolute lack of drama. That same game is playable in Parallels 7 I’d attribute the difference to Fusion’s support for only 256MB of video RAM, versus 1GB in Parallels. For example, the demo of Hard Reset ran at such slow frame-rates that gameplay was virtually impossible. Most older games ran just fine, and more recent games ran reasonably well, but graphically-intensive new games ran either very poorly or not at all. I also tested a number of games, and there the results were decent. The applications loaded quickly everything worked as I expected it to. I had no trouble at all running a normal suite of Windows office applications (including Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Acrobat). Thankfully, Fusion does so intelligently: It doesn’t add every single Windows program to that app interface. You can also optionally add Windows programs to Launchpad. For example, when you’re running Windows in Fusion’s Unity mode (which makes Windows apps appear as individual programs, just like your Mac ones), each of your open Windows apps appear separately in Mission Control. VMware has specifically tweaked Fusion to work well with Lion. (You can, if you wish, disable UAC to lower the annoyance level.)
That leads to more annoying user access control (UAC) prompts, but results in a much higher degree of security. Windows 8 Developer Preview’s Weather app running in a virtual machine.īy default, Fusion sets up a normal Windows 7 user account, leaving the Administrator account disabled. Even so, you’ll want to buy Windows on your own, so you don’t pay list price.
Virtualization vmware fusion mac how to#
Fusion does include a video that shows you how to buy a copy directly from Microsoft. (I was also able to install the Windows 8 Developer Preview, and it ran quite nicely, too.) Unlike Parallels 7, Fusion 4 doesn’t allow you to purchase a copy of Windows from within the program itself. Installing Windows within Fusion 4 is straightforward: Installing the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional on a 2011 MacBook Pro (2.2GHz Core i7 with 4G of RAM) took me just under 15 minutes. If you use more than one Mac with regularity, this is easier on the pocketbook than is Parallels’ “one machine, one license” requirement.
Virtualization vmware fusion mac license#
Fusion’s license allows for unlimited installation on as many Macs as you use (for personal use business users have different terms).