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VMWare Fusion 4 is out

B

bobnugget

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 15, 2006
424
214
England
Looks like Fusion 4.0 is finally out!

Release Notes

Download

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Pricing info is here - annoyingly I can't find any details on upgrade pricing at all, as I have two 3.0 licenses.

If you took part in the Beta, check the community as there is a discount coupon there, too.
 
I'm downloading the trial for now, and then I'll upgrade. I have my virtual machines backed up incase I need to downgrade back to ver 3.

Kebabselector said:
I couldn't find any upgrade info either - but I guess as it's cheaper for a limited time it's probably not going to be available as an upgrade.
Click to expand...

Given the price is now 49 bucks I wonder if there will not be an upgrade price. I forget but I thought that prior versions were priced higher
 
Last edited:
IMO, they shouldn't use Lion's full-screen icon in their toolbar if clicking it doesn't give you the same Lion full-screen experience (i.e. app moves to its own space, pointing at the top of the screen gives you the OS X menu bar back, etc). :mad:
 
So far my experience of the full screen interface is not quite the Lion one. I hit the full screen button and it took my system out, keyboard and mouse froze and it dropped off the network. Nice...
 
I'm sure this is documented somewhere, but for those like me that don't read documentation, you can go into the Settings of your existing VMs and change the compatibility level up to get more of the version 4 features. :eek:
 
maflynn said:
Given the price is now 49 bucks I wonder if there will not be an upgrade price. I forget but I thought that prior versions were priced higher
Click to expand...

I don't mind too much if that's the case. I think version 1 cost me £50, then it was $12 for 1->2, and then about $12 for 2->3. So it's been a cheap app up to this point.
 
Had video issues with version 4, so I am heading back to 3. I did uninstall the driver and reinstall it but it was still flickering. Guess I'll stick with 3.x...
 
Did anyone else find that their Windows7 required re-activation with a phone call after upgrading from Fusion 3 to 4?

I got the 30-day to re-activate notice, and the online activation apparently failed and requires the phone call 64-number activation drill again. :(



-howard
 
hfg said:
Did anyone else find that their Windows7 required re-activation with a phone call after upgrading from Fusion 3 to 4?

I got the 30-day to re-activate notice, and the online activation apparently failed and requires the phone call 64-number activation drill again. :(



-howard
Click to expand...

I've upgraded my Win 7 64bit VM to Fusion 4. Windows did not ask for re-activation.

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shyam09 said:
quick question. did you install the VMWare tools?
Click to expand...

Yes, you have to re-install VMWare Tools for Fusion 4.

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wpotere said:
Had video issues with version 4, so I am heading back to 3. I did uninstall the driver and reinstall it but it was still flickering. Guess I'll stick with 3.x...
Click to expand...

I had the same at the beginning. You have to redistill VMWare tools, but it did not help in my case either. Restarted VM - no help. Screen still flickering and I also had random mouse pointer moves (like crazy). What I had to do is to restart the host OS (Lion in my case) and everything is OK. It seems there is a restart of the host system after upgrading the VM to Fusion 4 necessary for some reason. Had happened with all the VMs I've upgraded.
 
How's the performance, do you folks think windows is faster or slower under Fusion 4 and how do you think it stacks up against Parallels 7
 
maflynn said:
How's the performance, do you folks think windows is faster or slower under Fusion 4 and how do you think it stacks up against Parallels 7
Click to expand...

For what I am doing under Win 7 64/bit it seems very similar so far as I am unable to push the system to the edge. The only visible improvement is graphics (gaming).
I have Parallels 7 license, however I use Fusion almost exclusively. Will take time over the weekend to further discover Fusion 4 against Parallels 7. I will get back with the results.

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The thing I was hoping for - being able to allocate more than 8 GB RAM - i still not there :mad:

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oh, and the Windows under Fusion 4 is definitely not slower than Fusion 3 here. really seems the same so far.
 
Honbe said:
oh, and the Windows under Fusion 4 is definitely not slower than Fusion 3 here. really seems the same so far.
Click to expand...

The reason why I asked is because after upgrading my windows vm under fusion 4 and rerunning the windows experience index, it came back with a lower value. In fact the Graphic performance went down to 1 so aero was disabled, before it was in the 3.7 to 4.5 range.

Overall the performance was ok from my limited usage. Still it may be cheaper for me to switch to parallels given the competitive upgrade offer they're offering.
 
Win 7 - 64bit under Fusion 3:
epx. index 5.8 (graphics)

Win 7 - 64bit under Fusion 4:
exp. index 6.0 (graphics)

There is a slight improvement...
 
Honbe said:
I had the same at the beginning. You have to redistill VMWare tools, but it did not help in my case either. Restarted VM - no help. Screen still flickering and I also had random mouse pointer moves (like crazy). What I had to do is to restart the host OS (Lion in my case) and everything is OK. It seems there is a restart of the host system after upgrading the VM to Fusion 4 necessary for some reason. Had happened with all the VMs I've upgraded.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I will give it a shot! :cool:
 
Honbe said:
Win 7 - 64bit under Fusion 3:
epx. index 5.8 (graphics)

Win 7 - 64bit under Fusion 4:
exp. index 6.0 (graphics)

There is a slight improvement...
Click to expand...

I wonder why mine went down to 1 after upgrading the VM. I may restore the back up and see how it is.
 
maflynn said:
Yes and it was then after rerunning the experience index did it plummet :(
Click to expand...

Was the 1 for graphics? Are you running this on the Mini? How much RAM allocated to the VM? 3D accel. on?
Just couple of thoughts...
 
Last edited:
hfg said:
Did anyone else find that their Windows7 required re-activation with a phone call after upgrading from Fusion 3 to 4?

I got the 30-day to re-activate notice, and the online activation apparently failed and requires the phone call 64-number activation drill again. :(



-howard
Click to expand...

shyam09 said:
quick question. did you install the VMWare tools?
Click to expand...

I thought it installed the tools in the background at first launch, since it required a reboot shortly afterwards. But I just did the menu "Install Tools" and it gave me the normal prompt dialog boxes, then did the install and reboot.

This did not fix the Windows "activation" issue, however it may have been too late once it is triggered. I will try the phone activation today and my experience has been that that always has worked (although it is really annoying to sit through).


-howard
 
When you run the installation for Fusion 4, you are given 2 choices for the upgrade.

The top on is to drag the VMware Fusion icon and drop it on your Application Folder.

The other is to "Double-click to upgrade from VMware Fusion 3".




Which one did the people who had no activation problems use?
 
hfg said:
When you run the installation for Fusion 4, you are given 2 choices for the upgrade.

The top on is to drag the VMware Fusion icon and drop it on your Application Folder.

The other is to "Double-click to upgrade from VMware Fusion 3".




Which one did the people who had no activation problems use?
Click to expand...
I double-clicked and didn't have any problems with my guest Windows OSs needing to re-activate.
 
Honbe said:
Was the 1 for graphics? Are you running this on the Mini? How much RAM allocated to the VM? 3D accel. on?
Just couple of thoughts...
Click to expand...

I have a 2010 13" MBP with 8gb of ram. It had a faster value prior to the upgrade. I'll have to play with the settings when I get home.
 
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