- Switch to Mac and run Windows programs seamlessly on your Mac without rebooting
- Designed for OS X Lion; run OS X Lion in a virtual machine; full Windows 7 support
- Turbocharged performance with up to 2.5x faster 3D graphics
- Highly optimized 64-bit engine and multi-core processing faster than ever
- Install from included USB key or DVD; 90+ new features
Product Features |
System Requirements
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Product Description
Amazon.com
Switch to a Mac and Run Windows Programs Without Rebooting
VMware Fusion 4 has been refined from the inside-out to give users the easiest, fastest and most reliable experience in running Windows applications on a Mac without rebooting. With over 90 new features including OS X Lion optimization, an even more Mac-like design and next-generation 64-bit performance, VMware Fusion 4 is the best way to run Windows on a Mac without rebooting.
Migration assistant makes it easy to transfer your entire PC to your Mac.
Switching From a PC to a Mac Made Easy
VMware Fusion's migration assistant for Windows makes it easier than ever to transfer your entire PC to your Mac and make the most of your Windows software investment. Get the best of both worlds and have access to your Windows programs and all your files from your old PC directly on your Mac, whenever you need them.
Run Your Favorite Windows Programs
Run your favorite Windows programs alongside Mac applications without rebooting. Whether you want to run Windows XP, Vista or 7 on a Mac, VMware Fusion's easy install feature will get you up and running in no time. With the ability to run Windows-only programs like Microsoft Project, Access and Internet Explorer, VMware Fusion turns your Mac into the ultimate computer for compatibility.
Run your favorite Windows programs alongside Mac applications without rebooting. View larger.
Use Specific Windows-Only Devices on Your Mac
VMware Fusion 4 lets you use Windows-only USB or Bluetooth devices on your Mac--from GPS receivers, to cell phones or mp3 players and other input devices that are only supported in Windows.
The Perfect Complement to Boot Camp
No more choosing between Windows or Mac at startup, VMware Fusion lets you run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side directly from your existing Boot Camp partition.
Why VMware Fusion?
Made by the leader in virtualization, VMware Fusion 4 offers unique yet simple ways to run Windows programs on a Mac.
Running Windows Programs on a Mac is Easy
VMware Fusion 4 makes it easier than ever to run Windows on a Mac. Run Windows programs the same way you use Mac applications, with seamless copy-and-paste, drag-and-drop, and networking and printing capabilities that require no additional setup.
Keep Your Windows Programs Separate or Fully Integrated
| More isolated |  | More integrated |
VMware Fusion 4 has a View for Everyone...
 Full Screen Multiple Apps For a complete Windows experience, run Windows in full screen on one display or across multiple displays connected to your Mac. |  Single Window Multiple Apps To keep your Windows programs separate from your Mac environment, run Windows in single window view. |  Unity Multiple Apps For a fully integrated experience, run Windows in Unity to run Windows programs without seeing Windows. |
Run Windows Programs Like Mac Applications
Launch Windows programs directly from the Dock, Spotlight or Launchpad and view them in Expose, Spaces and Mission Control as if they were Mac applications. Easily interact with Windows programs using Mac shortcuts and OS X Lion gestures.
More Compatible than Ever Before
With added support for virtualizing OS X Lion as well as over 200 operating systems, VMware Fusion 4 will turn your Mac into the most compatible computer you've ever owned.
Added support for virtualizing OS X Lion.
View larger.
View larger.
Made by the Virtualization Leader
Trusted by Mac professionals and millions of users worldwide, VMware Fusion 4 brings the stability and reliability that can only be delivered by the leader in virtualization. Used by 96% of the Fortune top 1000 companies, VMware has won more than 280 awards for its virtualization-leading software including the industry-acclaimed Macworld Editor's Choice award.
We've Got You Covered
For added peace of mind, we've included 18 months of free email support and a 12-month complimentary subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus to protect your Windows environment.
What's New in VMware Fusion 4?
Turbocharged and refined from the inside-out for the ultimate Windows on Mac experience.
VMware Fusion 4 has been turbocharged and refined from the inside-out to deliver the easiest, fastest and most reliable experience in running Windows programs on a Mac without rebooting.
Designed for OS X Lion
VMware Fusion 4 is designed for OS X Lion. The updated user interface makes working with your Windows applications quicker and easier. Launch Windows applications from LaunchPad, move from Windows to Mac with a single swipe in Mission Control and beautiful high-resolution icons. It just works. VMware Fusion 4 is also compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.7 (Snow Leopard).
- LaunchPad and Mission Control Integration
- View Windows Programs in Full-Screen
- Gestures Integration
- Ultrafast Resume
Updated user interface makes working with your Windows applications quicker and easier.
View larger.
View larger.
Even More Mac-like
VMware Fusion 4 enhances the way you experience Windows applications on your Mac. From the new App Unity feature, to the redesigned user interface, and Time Machine-compatible Snapshots, everything has been refined to give users an even more Mac-like experience when running Windows applications on your Mac.
- Next-generation Unity: Add Windows programs to Launchpad, search them using Spotlight or access them directly from the Mac applications folder
- Redesigned single window mode, settings menu and virtual machine library
- Time Machine compatible Snapshots
Get Better Performance, Faster Graphics and Outstanding Reliability.
Optimized for today's multi-core Macs and with support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 graphics, VMware Fusion 4 will run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side at incredible speeds without sacrificing reliability.
2.5x faster 3D graphics
With more than 2.5x faster 3D graphics, VMware Fusion 4 is faster than ever.
Get the stability and reliability that can only be delivered by the leader in virtualization. Used by 96% of Fortune 1000 companies, VMware has won more than 280 awards for its virtualization leading software.
Great New Learning Center
Get the most out of VMware Fusion 4 with the new learning center. Learn how to get started, transfer your entire PC to your Mac or install a new copy of Windows and more through step-by-step easy to view video tutorials.
Features
- Switch to Mac and run Windows programs seamlessly on your Mac without rebooting
- Designed for OS X Lion
- Run OS X Lion in a virtual machine!
- Install from the included USB key or DVD
- Brand-new user interface that offers an even more Mac-like experience when running Windows and Mac applications side-by-side
- Turbocharged performance with up to 2.5x faster 3D graphics
- Highly optimized 64-bit engine and multi-core processing faster than ever
- Full Windows 7 support including Windows Aero and Flip 3D animations
- Easily transfer your entire PC to your Mac with the ultra-fast migration assistant for Windows
- More than 90 new features
What Differentiates VMware Fusion 4 From Other Solutions
VMware Fusion is designed from the ground up for the Mac and preloaded with powerful new features which allow you to run Windows applications even more like Mac applications.
Engineered in California by the worldwide leader in virtualization, VMware Fusion is the best way to run Windows on your Mac.
VMware Fusion 4 is Recommended For
Home users, students and business professionals who are looking for the fastest, easiest and most reliable way to run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side on their Mac without rebooting.
What's in the box?
VMware Fusion 4 Software DVD, VMware Fusion 4 USB Key, link to new Learning Center with video tutorials, Quickstart Guide, VMware stickers, 18-months of free email-support (English only), 12-month complimentary subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus.
Product Description
VMware Fusion 4 makes it a breeze to run your Windows and Mac applications side by side with incredible speed and the reliability you need. With more than 90 new features and optimized for today’s multi-core Macs and OS X Lion, VMware Fusion 4 is better than ever.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By airfoil
Format:Software|Amazon Verified Purchase
A long time user of VMware Fusion 3.x, I was hoping all would be well with my upgrade to OS X Lion. In fact it was seamless. But then VMware immediately had their Fusion 4.x offering to take advantage of tighter integration of your Windows 7 client. I took the leap of faith in VMware products, and upgraded to Fusion 4.x, and the whole thing went without a hitch. I had read prior to instalation of version 4, that version 3 had to be put in the trash, which I did, simply by dragging the version 3.x app from the /Applications folder into the trash. Then I inserted the instalation disc into my iMac, and to my surprise, version 4 comes with a specific icon to push if you are upgrading from version 3. After the rapid instalation took place, I booted my existing clients, and was relieved to see everything was intact, and Fusion 4 recognized that VMware tools needed to be updated on the client, and proceeded to perform that upgrade without any surprises. Everything was seamless, and just worked the first time. Now my client machines are treated as simply another desktop in Lion, when I run them full screen, which is my normal habit. This means you can use the swipe gesture to get to your Windows clients. Could not be more simple. I've yet to run into any issues, which is more than I can say for OS X Lion, which, as well known breaks many older applications built for pre-Intel macs.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Software|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I've used Fusion 4 for a while now. I've used the prior versions of Fusion and I've used Parallels 6 recently also. All are on Snow Leopard / 10.6 on Mac Pros and MacBook Pros.
The good:
* You can finally do disk cleanup on VMs that have snapshots! I regained around 10-15 GB of real disk space by doing a disk cleanup on a couple of VMs.
* Unity feels much more responsive than it did in Fusion 3.
* No stability issues.
* The snapshot timeline and hierarchy view is quite handy.
* Works in both 32-bit and 64-bit kernel mode on Snow Leopard. Not sure if it supports 32-bit on Lion; VMWare's knowledge base implied that it didn't but I haven't personally checked.
* VM encryption support. I don't recall seeing that before. Haven't tried it so I don't know what the performance penalty is.
The bad:
VMWare made the choice with Fusion 4 that eye candy was more important than responsiveness and functionality. They created window animations in front of all the major functions. From poking around, it seems that it is supposed to mimic Lion's behavior. Unfortunately, the pretty eye candy makes doing VM management downright painful.
The new Virtual Machine Library window is no longer a list. Instead it is a large thumbnail for every machine. If you have any information noted with the VM, like user / password info for a seldom used virtual machine, it was plainly visible when you selected the VM to launch it in Fusion 3. In Fusion 4, now you have to bring up the VM Library window, click to select the VM, click to bring up the settings for the VM, then click to go into General. Every single one of those clicks wastes 3-5 seconds displaying a completely useless window animation on a Mac Pro.
The Snapshot management window requires bring up the VM Library, selecting the VM, then going up to the menu to Snapshots (or using Cmd-S). That then launches a pretty animation that makes what was the VM Library window now a window for the selected VM. The VM window then has a pretty animation that converts it to the Snapshot window. It then starts yet another pretty animation to fly the individual snapshots into place. More snapshots == more animation == longer time before you can actually do something productive. When you're done with the Snapshot window, click Close. Wait on another animation while the snapshots fly away. The window then switches from Snapshot back to the VM. However, if you happened to move the Snapshot window while you were working on it, when the animation for closing it finishes, the window for the VM jumps back to where it was when you opened the Snapshots.
That brings up a key point. The VM Library window is now almost useless for anything beyond launching a VM. Where in Fusion 3 and prior, the VM Library window was a real, independent window, in Fusion 4 it is simply a front for whatever VM you happen to click on. As soon as you do -anything- with a VM in the window the VM Library window is gone, replaced with another useless animation as it becomes the VM's window. Not really a problem if you only have a couple VMs since you don't go there that often. However if you have several VMs, and I have about 15 on one machine, it's a completely different story.
Remember the good part about Fusion 4 supporting disk cleanup on VMs with snapshots? Well, after I found that I wanted to go through my VMs to see which ones had space that could be recovered. Here's the process:
1) Open the VM Library
2) wait on useless animation to bring up the window
3) Click a VM
4) Click on the Settings icon
5) wait on a useless animation as the VM Library window miraculously transforms itself into a blank VM window with the play button
6) wait a little bit longer while another animation slides in the settings window
7) Click on General
8) wait a little bit while the settings window transforms into the General window
9) Look at the disk info at the bottom
10) Wait about 5-15 seconds for Fusion to scan the VM and show the amount of Reclaimable disk space
11) If applicable, click Clean Up Virtual Machine
12) repeat from step 1 and increase frustration level
It's obvious that when they were making the animations that they wanted to ensure each animation took at least a certain amount of time, say 2 seconds, for the animation to run to ensure that everyone had at least that much eye candy. Unfortunately, someone didn't realize that adding pretty at the expense of function was a Bad Idea. Pretty is nice the first few times, after that it just gets in the way. Even better? All those animations? They aren't completely smooth.
Remember the status bar in Fusion 3 and earlier that let you see things like disk activity and network activity when in Window mode? Well, it's still there, but no longer a status bar at the bottom of the window. Now it's at the top of the window in a bar that extends from the settings button at the upper left. Tad annoying since when I'm looking for status I expect to see the status bar in its proper location at the bottom of the window. I keep looking down there, not seeing anything, and remembering that I have to go look at the opposite corner of the screen.
The so-so:
You still can't clone a snapshot like you can in Workstation. And there still isn't any official support for linked clones.
Oh, side note. I did shift over to Parallels 6 before upgrading to Fusion 4. One of the things I noticed was that Coherence in Parallels 6 behaved a bit differently than Unity in Fusion. In Parallels, when I hid an application that was running in Coherence mode using Cmd-H, it hid all of the Parallels windows instead of just that one application. In Fusion, both version 3 and 4, when hiding an application running in Unity mode via Cmd-H, only the application is hidden. That one difference in behavior is what shifted me off of Parallels and back to Fusion full time.
Overall:
So, overall, what do I think of Fusion 4? Well, it works reliably and well. I use it daily and haven't had any functional issues. For that, I give it a solid 4 stars, maybe 5. Unfortunately, it's wrapped inside completely useless, time-wasting, frustrating eye candy that is impossible to get rid of. That knocks it down to 3.
Update Feb 17, 2012:
I've had Fusion die on me a couple times now. Never when running a single VM, only multiple. And it may be tied to using Unity. The last one I know I had Unity mode running on one of them, but I'm not certain if that was also true for the prior one. The recent one was running 4.1.1, but I don't recall if that was true for the prior one as well.
There is a bit of good news here though. The way Fusion operates, each running VM is an independent process that is started by Fusion. The main Fusion process is what lets you see and interact with each VM. If it crashes, the VMs continue to run without a problem. When you restart Fusion, it reattaches to the running VMs and lets you see and interact with them again. Still annoying, but thankfully the way it operates means the crash doesn't cause you to lose anything inside the VMs.
The good:
* You can finally do disk cleanup on VMs that have snapshots! I regained around 10-15 GB of real disk space by doing a disk cleanup on a couple of VMs.
* Unity feels much more responsive than it did in Fusion 3.
* No stability issues.
* The snapshot timeline and hierarchy view is quite handy.
* Works in both 32-bit and 64-bit kernel mode on Snow Leopard. Not sure if it supports 32-bit on Lion; VMWare's knowledge base implied that it didn't but I haven't personally checked.
* VM encryption support. I don't recall seeing that before. Haven't tried it so I don't know what the performance penalty is.
The bad:
VMWare made the choice with Fusion 4 that eye candy was more important than responsiveness and functionality. They created window animations in front of all the major functions. From poking around, it seems that it is supposed to mimic Lion's behavior. Unfortunately, the pretty eye candy makes doing VM management downright painful.
The new Virtual Machine Library window is no longer a list. Instead it is a large thumbnail for every machine. If you have any information noted with the VM, like user / password info for a seldom used virtual machine, it was plainly visible when you selected the VM to launch it in Fusion 3. In Fusion 4, now you have to bring up the VM Library window, click to select the VM, click to bring up the settings for the VM, then click to go into General. Every single one of those clicks wastes 3-5 seconds displaying a completely useless window animation on a Mac Pro.
The Snapshot management window requires bring up the VM Library, selecting the VM, then going up to the menu to Snapshots (or using Cmd-S). That then launches a pretty animation that makes what was the VM Library window now a window for the selected VM. The VM window then has a pretty animation that converts it to the Snapshot window. It then starts yet another pretty animation to fly the individual snapshots into place. More snapshots == more animation == longer time before you can actually do something productive. When you're done with the Snapshot window, click Close. Wait on another animation while the snapshots fly away. The window then switches from Snapshot back to the VM. However, if you happened to move the Snapshot window while you were working on it, when the animation for closing it finishes, the window for the VM jumps back to where it was when you opened the Snapshots.
That brings up a key point. The VM Library window is now almost useless for anything beyond launching a VM. Where in Fusion 3 and prior, the VM Library window was a real, independent window, in Fusion 4 it is simply a front for whatever VM you happen to click on. As soon as you do -anything- with a VM in the window the VM Library window is gone, replaced with another useless animation as it becomes the VM's window. Not really a problem if you only have a couple VMs since you don't go there that often. However if you have several VMs, and I have about 15 on one machine, it's a completely different story.
Remember the good part about Fusion 4 supporting disk cleanup on VMs with snapshots? Well, after I found that I wanted to go through my VMs to see which ones had space that could be recovered. Here's the process:
1) Open the VM Library
2) wait on useless animation to bring up the window
3) Click a VM
4) Click on the Settings icon
5) wait on a useless animation as the VM Library window miraculously transforms itself into a blank VM window with the play button
6) wait a little bit longer while another animation slides in the settings window
7) Click on General
8) wait a little bit while the settings window transforms into the General window
9) Look at the disk info at the bottom
10) Wait about 5-15 seconds for Fusion to scan the VM and show the amount of Reclaimable disk space
11) If applicable, click Clean Up Virtual Machine
12) repeat from step 1 and increase frustration level
It's obvious that when they were making the animations that they wanted to ensure each animation took at least a certain amount of time, say 2 seconds, for the animation to run to ensure that everyone had at least that much eye candy. Unfortunately, someone didn't realize that adding pretty at the expense of function was a Bad Idea. Pretty is nice the first few times, after that it just gets in the way. Even better? All those animations? They aren't completely smooth.
Remember the status bar in Fusion 3 and earlier that let you see things like disk activity and network activity when in Window mode? Well, it's still there, but no longer a status bar at the bottom of the window. Now it's at the top of the window in a bar that extends from the settings button at the upper left. Tad annoying since when I'm looking for status I expect to see the status bar in its proper location at the bottom of the window. I keep looking down there, not seeing anything, and remembering that I have to go look at the opposite corner of the screen.
The so-so:
You still can't clone a snapshot like you can in Workstation. And there still isn't any official support for linked clones.
Oh, side note. I did shift over to Parallels 6 before upgrading to Fusion 4. One of the things I noticed was that Coherence in Parallels 6 behaved a bit differently than Unity in Fusion. In Parallels, when I hid an application that was running in Coherence mode using Cmd-H, it hid all of the Parallels windows instead of just that one application. In Fusion, both version 3 and 4, when hiding an application running in Unity mode via Cmd-H, only the application is hidden. That one difference in behavior is what shifted me off of Parallels and back to Fusion full time.
Overall:
So, overall, what do I think of Fusion 4? Well, it works reliably and well. I use it daily and haven't had any functional issues. For that, I give it a solid 4 stars, maybe 5. Unfortunately, it's wrapped inside completely useless, time-wasting, frustrating eye candy that is impossible to get rid of. That knocks it down to 3.
Update Feb 17, 2012:
I've had Fusion die on me a couple times now. Never when running a single VM, only multiple. And it may be tied to using Unity. The last one I know I had Unity mode running on one of them, but I'm not certain if that was also true for the prior one. The recent one was running 4.1.1, but I don't recall if that was true for the prior one as well.
There is a bit of good news here though. The way Fusion operates, each running VM is an independent process that is started by Fusion. The main Fusion process is what lets you see and interact with each VM. If it crashes, the VMs continue to run without a problem. When you restart Fusion, it reattaches to the running VMs and lets you see and interact with them again. Still annoying, but thankfully the way it operates means the crash doesn't cause you to lose anything inside the VMs.
33 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Software|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
VMWare's Fusion is one of three virtualization products that I'm aware of for the Mac-the other being Parallel's product, and the free VirtualBox. Like those, Fusion lets you install an entire separate operating system inside OS X, that's running at the same time.
It's worth noting that modern Macintoshes can already run Windows and other OSes without separate software, by using "Boot Camp", which basically lets you reboot your system to switch between OS X and Windows or whatever OS choose to install. The advantage of using Fusion instead of (or in addition to) Bootcamp is that you DON'T reboot, and can use Windows programs side by side OS X programs. The disadvantage of Fusion (and all products like this) is that it can't give the OS that's running inside it full access to your computer's hardware...you'll never get as good performance from Windows running inside Fusion (or any product like this) as you will if you actually reboot to Windows through Bootcamp, so for example if you're wanting to run a game, or play a Blu Ray movie, or do video editing or something like that, you'd probably need to reboot through Bootcamp.
But for other, less processor intense software, Fusion's a great choice. In my case it's handy to use it for a financial program I use, among others.
I should note that while as far as I know, Parallels is a fairly new company, VMWare has been making virtualization products for YEARS for enterprise use. They know what they're doing when it comes to making these products work and run stably. What I wasn't sure about was whether the Fusion interface would be good from a consumer perspective...turns out it's pretty great. I've been using VirtualPC for years (originally on the Mac when it was an emulation program, and now after Microsoft bought it as a virtualization tool in Windows). VirtualPC is very straight forward to set up and configure...and it turns out that jumping in to Fusion from VirtualPC is painless. Fusion's just as easy to configure, only impressively it even handles a lot of the OS setup, which VirtualPC doesn't do.
But I'm probably getting ahead of myself... My newest Macintosh is a 2011 Macbook Air, which lacks a DVD drive. I own a Superdrive for it, and needed to use it to install Windows XP anyway, but I was impressed that VMWare not only gives you a DVD, but also a USB thumb drive in the box. Installation is typical for OS X, where you just drag and drop the program, and then launch it. The ONLY problem I've had so far with Fusion is that when I ran it for the first time, it seemed to "lock up" for quite a long time...something like 5 minutes at least. I'm not sure how long as I left for a while, and when I came back it was responsive again. At that point I just ran the auto-updater, and haven't noticed any unusual behavior from it since.
Once you run it, Fusion gives you several choices for setting up an OS. It's supposedly able to kind of migrate you from an existing Windows PC to a virtualized PC running in Fusion (though I didn't try this method). It's also supposedly able to use a Boot Camp install. My Macbook Air doesn't have much storage space, so I don't have Windows set up that way, and couldn't try that. I'm not 100% sure that this is an issue, but a possible problem with using your Boot Camp install of Windows is that every time you boot in Fusion, and then reboot through Boot Camp, Windows is "seeing" that your hardware has changed, which will trigger activation...so I'm not really sure how practical it is to use the same copy of Windows for both Boot Camp and Fusion.
The option I choose, was just to set up a new virtual machine from scratch. Impressively, Fusion detected the Windows XP disc I had in my Superdrive. The default options it selected seemed fine, and then it even prompted me for a username, password, and product key Windows would be using, so that I wouldn't have to create those during the installation. So this was actually even easier to set up than it would be on a normal install!
I walked away again at the point, so I'm not actually sure how long it took-but Windows XP was up and running when I came back. It's worth nothing that with Fusion (and any similar products, and Boot Camp), you're actually running a real full OS inside the program, so it's necessary to perform the same updates, install something like Microsoft Security Essentials, etc., just like you would if it were a separate PC. I should also note that you'll need to buy a regular copy of Windows to use inside Fusion. I happened to already have an unused copy of Windows XP, so I just used that, but if you're buying new, I'd just go with Windows 7 (probably the Home Premium version for most people).
At this point I just started setting things up like I would a normal Windows PC...ran Windows update, installed Firefox, etc. I've used it off and on for a few days now, and haven't noticed any issues. I HAVE noticed that Fusion seems surprisingly fast...it SEEMS to feel faster running Windows XP inside Fusion than inside VirtualPC.
Unlike VirtualPC, Fusion provides more modern graphics support...supposedly you get at least some hardware acceleration for Windows XP or newer, which should mean that Windows Vista or 7's graphical interface should run okay (like with OS X, Windows Vista or newer offloads processing of the graphical interface to the GPU, if you have one). Now it's still not going to give you as good performance as running on the same hardware natively...so for games, Blu Ray, etc. you'll probably want to use Boot Camp instead, but I am impressed by how snappy Windows feels compared with running it inside VirtualPC. Again, this is why I'd pick VMWare's Fusion over other products-while their Macintosh product is just 4 or so years old, they've been doing this a long time for enterprise stuff, and it shows. Of course I have a 2011 Macbook Air...the 2010 models would probably feel much slower, while a 2011 Macbook Pro would be faster.)
A few other things worth mentioning...
-Fusion installs almost a Windows Start menu up by the clock. It's kind of neat...it basically is structured similarly to the actual Windows start menu, and lets you launch programs from that. I haven't yet, but I assume you can shut it off.
-Like all virtualiazation programs, Fusion has to install some system level drivers/kernel extensions or the like. I don't like having third party software muck about with my operating system, but virtualization software has to...which again is a reason I'd prefer it be done either by the same company that made the OS, or by VMWare that at least knows what they're doing with this stuff.
-Like all virtualization programs, OSes running within Fusion use up a chunk of your Mac's RAM. Fusion by default gave Windows XP 512MB, which can be changed. Obviously that means the more virtual machines you want to run at the same time, or the more RAM you want to give to a virtualized OS, the more RAM your Mac needs...that may be a problem for the Macbook Air which doesn't have upgradeable RAM (the Macbook Pro by contrast you could easily upgrade to 8GB if need be). The "hard drive" the hosted OS sees is really a file on your real hard drive, so again, the bigger your real hard drive, the more space you have to give to the hosted OS. Fusion also lets you select the number of cores/CPUs that the hosted OS "sees". Be default, it configures Windows XP to use 1 core, but you can increase that (and of course the more of your CPU you let it use, the worse OS X may run while the hosted OS is running).
-You can also "pause" Windows, roll back changes that have been made to it, etc. Running an OS like this can actually be really handy to test out a piece of software you may not want, or for development work, etc.
-By default, Fusion configures Windows for NAT, that is it shares the Macintosh's internet connection...if your Mac is connected, so is Windows running through Fusion. Though if you have more complex needs, it's possible to set up networking differently.
I'm probably forgetting to comment on some features...and obviously a product like this is kind of impossible to test in every conceivable way, given the dozens of Mac models it runs on, the hundreds of OS configurations, thousands if not millions of programs you can run inside it, etc. But at least so far I'm very impressed-VMWare seems to have made a very stable, fast program, that to my surprise seems to be just as easy, if not actually easier to configure as VirtualPC...if you've got the need to run Windows programs without rebooting, Fusion is definitely worth checking out!
It's worth noting that modern Macintoshes can already run Windows and other OSes without separate software, by using "Boot Camp", which basically lets you reboot your system to switch between OS X and Windows or whatever OS choose to install. The advantage of using Fusion instead of (or in addition to) Bootcamp is that you DON'T reboot, and can use Windows programs side by side OS X programs. The disadvantage of Fusion (and all products like this) is that it can't give the OS that's running inside it full access to your computer's hardware...you'll never get as good performance from Windows running inside Fusion (or any product like this) as you will if you actually reboot to Windows through Bootcamp, so for example if you're wanting to run a game, or play a Blu Ray movie, or do video editing or something like that, you'd probably need to reboot through Bootcamp.
But for other, less processor intense software, Fusion's a great choice. In my case it's handy to use it for a financial program I use, among others.
I should note that while as far as I know, Parallels is a fairly new company, VMWare has been making virtualization products for YEARS for enterprise use. They know what they're doing when it comes to making these products work and run stably. What I wasn't sure about was whether the Fusion interface would be good from a consumer perspective...turns out it's pretty great. I've been using VirtualPC for years (originally on the Mac when it was an emulation program, and now after Microsoft bought it as a virtualization tool in Windows). VirtualPC is very straight forward to set up and configure...and it turns out that jumping in to Fusion from VirtualPC is painless. Fusion's just as easy to configure, only impressively it even handles a lot of the OS setup, which VirtualPC doesn't do.
But I'm probably getting ahead of myself... My newest Macintosh is a 2011 Macbook Air, which lacks a DVD drive. I own a Superdrive for it, and needed to use it to install Windows XP anyway, but I was impressed that VMWare not only gives you a DVD, but also a USB thumb drive in the box. Installation is typical for OS X, where you just drag and drop the program, and then launch it. The ONLY problem I've had so far with Fusion is that when I ran it for the first time, it seemed to "lock up" for quite a long time...something like 5 minutes at least. I'm not sure how long as I left for a while, and when I came back it was responsive again. At that point I just ran the auto-updater, and haven't noticed any unusual behavior from it since.
Once you run it, Fusion gives you several choices for setting up an OS. It's supposedly able to kind of migrate you from an existing Windows PC to a virtualized PC running in Fusion (though I didn't try this method). It's also supposedly able to use a Boot Camp install. My Macbook Air doesn't have much storage space, so I don't have Windows set up that way, and couldn't try that. I'm not 100% sure that this is an issue, but a possible problem with using your Boot Camp install of Windows is that every time you boot in Fusion, and then reboot through Boot Camp, Windows is "seeing" that your hardware has changed, which will trigger activation...so I'm not really sure how practical it is to use the same copy of Windows for both Boot Camp and Fusion.
The option I choose, was just to set up a new virtual machine from scratch. Impressively, Fusion detected the Windows XP disc I had in my Superdrive. The default options it selected seemed fine, and then it even prompted me for a username, password, and product key Windows would be using, so that I wouldn't have to create those during the installation. So this was actually even easier to set up than it would be on a normal install!
I walked away again at the point, so I'm not actually sure how long it took-but Windows XP was up and running when I came back. It's worth nothing that with Fusion (and any similar products, and Boot Camp), you're actually running a real full OS inside the program, so it's necessary to perform the same updates, install something like Microsoft Security Essentials, etc., just like you would if it were a separate PC. I should also note that you'll need to buy a regular copy of Windows to use inside Fusion. I happened to already have an unused copy of Windows XP, so I just used that, but if you're buying new, I'd just go with Windows 7 (probably the Home Premium version for most people).
At this point I just started setting things up like I would a normal Windows PC...ran Windows update, installed Firefox, etc. I've used it off and on for a few days now, and haven't noticed any issues. I HAVE noticed that Fusion seems surprisingly fast...it SEEMS to feel faster running Windows XP inside Fusion than inside VirtualPC.
Unlike VirtualPC, Fusion provides more modern graphics support...supposedly you get at least some hardware acceleration for Windows XP or newer, which should mean that Windows Vista or 7's graphical interface should run okay (like with OS X, Windows Vista or newer offloads processing of the graphical interface to the GPU, if you have one). Now it's still not going to give you as good performance as running on the same hardware natively...so for games, Blu Ray, etc. you'll probably want to use Boot Camp instead, but I am impressed by how snappy Windows feels compared with running it inside VirtualPC. Again, this is why I'd pick VMWare's Fusion over other products-while their Macintosh product is just 4 or so years old, they've been doing this a long time for enterprise stuff, and it shows. Of course I have a 2011 Macbook Air...the 2010 models would probably feel much slower, while a 2011 Macbook Pro would be faster.)
A few other things worth mentioning...
-Fusion installs almost a Windows Start menu up by the clock. It's kind of neat...it basically is structured similarly to the actual Windows start menu, and lets you launch programs from that. I haven't yet, but I assume you can shut it off.
-Like all virtualiazation programs, Fusion has to install some system level drivers/kernel extensions or the like. I don't like having third party software muck about with my operating system, but virtualization software has to...which again is a reason I'd prefer it be done either by the same company that made the OS, or by VMWare that at least knows what they're doing with this stuff.
-Like all virtualization programs, OSes running within Fusion use up a chunk of your Mac's RAM. Fusion by default gave Windows XP 512MB, which can be changed. Obviously that means the more virtual machines you want to run at the same time, or the more RAM you want to give to a virtualized OS, the more RAM your Mac needs...that may be a problem for the Macbook Air which doesn't have upgradeable RAM (the Macbook Pro by contrast you could easily upgrade to 8GB if need be). The "hard drive" the hosted OS sees is really a file on your real hard drive, so again, the bigger your real hard drive, the more space you have to give to the hosted OS. Fusion also lets you select the number of cores/CPUs that the hosted OS "sees". Be default, it configures Windows XP to use 1 core, but you can increase that (and of course the more of your CPU you let it use, the worse OS X may run while the hosted OS is running).
-You can also "pause" Windows, roll back changes that have been made to it, etc. Running an OS like this can actually be really handy to test out a piece of software you may not want, or for development work, etc.
-By default, Fusion configures Windows for NAT, that is it shares the Macintosh's internet connection...if your Mac is connected, so is Windows running through Fusion. Though if you have more complex needs, it's possible to set up networking differently.
I'm probably forgetting to comment on some features...and obviously a product like this is kind of impossible to test in every conceivable way, given the dozens of Mac models it runs on, the hundreds of OS configurations, thousands if not millions of programs you can run inside it, etc. But at least so far I'm very impressed-VMWare seems to have made a very stable, fast program, that to my surprise seems to be just as easy, if not actually easier to configure as VirtualPC...if you've got the need to run Windows programs without rebooting, Fusion is definitely worth checking out!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can have Windows on your Mac!
First, you need to have your own copy of Windows because this doesn't come with one. So, dig out your old copy or download one from Microsoft.
OS X Lion (version 10. Read more
OS X Lion (version 10. Read more
Published 6 days ago by anonymous
3.0 out of 5 stars
Clumsy
This is very slow to boot up, and is not intuitive like Apple products are, but it sure does make my Mac look like a PC. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Karl F. Kuhn Sr.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but....
Good, but a little complex for my tastes.
I've always loved VMware fusion, so much so in fact, that my iMac used to have a VMware sticker under the Apple logo, but this... Read more
I've always loved VMware fusion, so much so in fact, that my iMac used to have a VMware sticker under the Apple logo, but this... Read more
Published 11 days ago by Mark
1.0 out of 5 stars
Useless for Mac OSX 10.6.4 or before
So I couldn't use it. That was disappointing. I will update the review if and when I upgrade my system, but for the time being, I didn't expect this incompatibility for a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Hedera Femme
5.0 out of 5 stars
Update required for OS X 10.8
If you're running MountAIN LION ON YOUR MAC, you need update 4.1.3 from the vmware site, its free and you can verify it with your purchased copy of fusion 4 key. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Antonio Sigala
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smooth sailing
Includes a USB drive in case you don't have an optical drive. Installation went smoothly, and allows use of Windows with no problems to date.
Published 1 month ago by Grimmy
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unable to install due to version incompatibilty
Amazon is asking Vine reviewers to write a review of all items they have received. This review is written to comply with that new policy. Read more
Published 1 month ago by K. Stout
1.0 out of 5 stars
In the running for worst customer service award
I have been using this product for over 6 months now. It is functional in the sense that it does allow you to run Windows on a Mac but it sometimes takes several minutes for this... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Laura Padfield
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkable
After resolving some hardware issues (and lack of HDD space) I set about installing VMWare4, which was a breeze, and then Windows XP (one of two legal copies I bought for my kids'... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gordon M. Wagner
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great product but I need it less and less
This is a great product that does exactly what it says. However, I find myself needing it less and less. Read more
Published 2 months ago by frankfromnj
Look for Similar Items by Category
|
