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VM Fusion
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If you mean if someone has used Fusion 4.0.2 in Lion, I have. I also installed Lion as a VM under Fusion 4.0.2 running on Lion. Unfortunately, Fusion 4.0.2 isn't a full-screen app (yet). Other than that, I haven't experienced any problems.
I guess I should have added is more convenient than rebooting using Boot Camp.
Any negatives about it?
I can run W7x86 and W7x64 in Fusion without any trouble. It is certainly more convenient than Boot Camp (which I also have), since you don't have to reboot, although I suppose if you want to play latest-generation games, Boot Camp will probably be better than either Fusion or Parallels. In any case, having Windows run in a VM is very interesting, since any adverse effects caused by a rogue programme or a virus can easily be reverted by going to the previous snapshot.
I guess that will depend exclusively on the amount of memory you are ready to surrender to your VM. I have 7Gb on my Mac Pro, and I've devoted 2Gb to my Windows 7 VM. If your memory configuration doesn't have gigabytes to spare, you might be better off using XP; otherwise, use Windows 7.
I am running Win 7 in a Virtual Box VM without any trouble. People seem to forget about, or discount Virtual Box, but I have been using it since January without trouble. It has a full screen mode also. Yes Fusion is a little faster/better, VB being free works for me.
Windows can be ran full-screen though under Fusion 4.0.2 correct?
At least it appears that way from a video on their webpage.
Link: http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/features.html
It can be run full screen. It has had a built in full screen mode for a while. This works fine. The trouble is, vmware make a big deal of marketing Fusion 4 as Lion compatible and yet they don't support one of Lion's main features - Lion's full screen app mode (which has the advantage of giving each app its own exclusive space that other apps can't invade). This is a source of frustration for many people, including me.
But that aside, I'm happy with Fusion. Compared to its main competitor (Parallels) it has a reputation of being more stable, whilst Parallels is reputedly a bit faster with better graphics support (but these differences might have disappeared in the latest versions - I have not read any comparisons). I have never tried Parallels myself.
Ive spent the last few minutes searching and i cant seem to find a direct answer.
I'm looking to run windows on my 2011 Macbook Air ( 13",1.7 GHz i5, 126GB) that i got a few weeks ago. I don't need it for any resource intensive programs, mostly building automation software that's only a few MB in size and other windows specific programs that wont run on OSX. I'm looking for the best setup using the limited amount of hard drive space and memory i have.
I installed Windows 7 x64 last night using VMWare Fusion 4 and using the easy installer and the default settings it allocated 60GB of hard drive space for windows 7. Thats 50% of my available storage, and i'm not really comfortable giving up that much. While windows 7 is running pretty well on my MB air, im wondering if there's a more efficient setup that uses less storage.
If there a way to have it allocate less storage? Say 20GB? I can still easily allocate more storage if its needed down the road correct? I don't necessarily need windows 7, and i know XP requires less space, but im comfortable giving up 20GB that windows 7 needs to run. And is there any benefit using bootcamp in conjunction with VMware fusion?
Any help or direction would be appreciated.
I'm looking to run windows on my 2011 Macbook Air ( 13",1.7 GHz i5, 126GB) that i got a few weeks ago. I don't need it for any resource intensive programs, mostly building automation software that's only a few MB in size and other windows specific programs that wont run on OSX. I'm looking for the best setup using the limited amount of hard drive space and memory i have.
I installed Windows 7 x64 last night using VMWare Fusion 4 and using the easy installer and the default settings it allocated 60GB of hard drive space for windows 7. Thats 50% of my available storage, and i'm not really comfortable giving up that much. While windows 7 is running pretty well on my MB air, im wondering if there's a more efficient setup that uses less storage.
If there a way to have it allocate less storage? Say 20GB? I can still easily allocate more storage if its needed down the road correct? I don't necessarily need windows 7, and i know XP requires less space, but im comfortable giving up 20GB that windows 7 needs to run. And is there any benefit using bootcamp in conjunction with VMware fusion?
Any help or direction would be appreciated.
Yes, don't use the easy install and default settings. You can adjust it all prior to the actual windows install. I have a couple W7 installs using 12Gb of disk.
My Mac Pro is used almost exclusively for VM's, and have anywhere from 3-6 running at a time. I'm still on Fusion 3.1.x and SL, but 4.x should be just as configurable (perhaps moreso).
Edit: I don't use bootcamp, so I can't answer that part. But from what you want to do it looks like you'd want to use a small W7 vm in unity mode for your windows apps.
Microsoft states the minimum requirements are 16GB for 32bit windows and 20GB for 64bit. I'm sure you could get away with less, you just need to find out how big the OS is after the install and then go from there. As for allocating more storage, it's pretty easy to grow the drive in fusion, then use diskpart in windows to use the extra space. The other thing you can do to save space in the short term is not have fusion preallocate the space for the disk right away.
Say you tell fusion to create a 20GB vmdk file, and you install windows and it only takes up 5GB, your vmdk file at that point is 5GB on disk. However windows sees it as 20GB. As you use up space on the windows side, the vmdk will grow to the maximum you specified. The flip side to this is once the space is allocated, it will not shrink. Ex, your vmdk grows to 10GB, you delete 5GB of stuff in windows, your vmdk is still 10GB.
As for bootcamp, it doesn't sound like you'll need it because you don't really have any performance requirements. And remember for bootcamp, you'll have to partition your disk and the new partition is only for bootcamp. Given your questions regarding the space usage, i don't think you'd want to commit to that.
Realistically you should set aside 25GB for Windows 7 64. You can google how to reduce windows 7 install size, or the specifically the topics below, but here are the main points.
1. Turn off pagefile and then delete pagefile.sys. W7 allocates a pagefile the size of your RAM. 8GB = 8 GB pagefile. You probably don't need it. A reset needs to take place after turning off the pagefile and deleting pagefile.sys for the hdd space to be freed.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com.../thread/d1c9db02-80b3-4ceb-8ddb-2cbd3967dc13/
2. turn off hibernation and delete hiberfil.sys. The best way to delete hiberfil.sys or disable hibernate:
Go to Start menu, type “cmd” open up command prompt
Type “powercfg.exe -h off” [make sure you are an Administrator]
ENTER
Type “exit”
ENTER
Reset.
3. There are extra programs and services such as media player that can be removed for an extra 5gb or so.
Quoted post above for reinforcement, not reponse to.
thanks for the replies.
is there a way to drop the allocated size from 60GB to 25GB or do i need to delete the virtual machine and start fresh?
I honestly done see any way to adjust the disk size prior to the Windows install? Maybe someone with VMfusion 4.x can chime in?
is there a way to drop the allocated size from 60GB to 25GB or do i need to delete the virtual machine and start fresh?
I honestly done see any way to adjust the disk size prior to the Windows install? Maybe someone with VMfusion 4.x can chime in?
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After you go through the wizard, you'll need to go to Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Hard Disk. Change the size to what you want and hit apply. Make sure the VM is off before you make the change.
After reading all the posts, I'm thinking the easiest and best plan for me is to install XP on Boot Camp since I've already partitioned and installed Boot Camp.
It will also save me a couple of bucks since I'll be getting XP for free.
It will also save me a couple of bucks since I'll be getting XP for free.
Boot Camp is only the best option if you need to run highly resource intensive applications (3D games, video editing etc). If you only need to run less demanding software (office applications etc) bootcamp is not the best option because it is inconvenient to have to reboot into Windows. If you want to save money, look into VirtualBox (free) instead of Fusion or Parallels.
Yes, it runs full screen
I am lucky (on my MacPro) that I have three screens. I use VMWare Fusion, with a Windows 7 Pro VM running on one screen, whilst Server 2008R2 runs as a VM on one of the others. I have 16GB of RAM in the Pro, and have 3GB assigned to the (32bit) Win7 and 6GB assigned to the server. Don't always have this set up this way, only when working on testing stuff, but very handy and saves a bundle on power and extra hardware too
I am lucky (on my MacPro) that I have three screens. I use VMWare Fusion, with a Windows 7 Pro VM running on one screen, whilst Server 2008R2 runs as a VM on one of the others. I have 16GB of RAM in the Pro, and have 3GB assigned to the (32bit) Win7 and 6GB assigned to the server. Don't always have this set up this way, only when working on testing stuff, but very handy and saves a bundle on power and extra hardware too