VMWare Public Beta, Parallels Beta 2

[lavrishevo]

Just installed the VMWare Public Beta with no problems at all. Seems good and stable right now with office, photoshop, premier, cool edit, pro show, and others working great. I can tell it is slower then boot camp but I think this is to be expected, especially with the debugging deal going on. I am fairly new to mac's so forgive me if I ask any stupid questions.

1: How is this going to work with the beta only being good till May, or at least my serial. This will mean I will have to pay for the software to get a good serial? Will it allow me to de-activate the debugging deal?

2: If I were to try Parallels, which I have not yet, will Parallels recognize the install I have already done or do I need to do it all over again?

Thanks for any info.

 

[brianriceca]

Disclaimer: although I work for VMware, I'm not an official spokesperson.

Just installed the VMWare Public Beta with no problems at all. Seems good and stable right now with office, photoshop, premier, cool edit, pro show, and others working great. I can tell it is slower then boot camp but I think this is to be expected, especially with the debugging deal going on.

Yes, the code is jam-packed with debugging functions, so I would avoid drawing conclusions about performance.

1: How is this going to work with the beta only being good till May, or at least my serial. This will mean I will have to pay for the software to get a good serial? Will it allow me to de-activate the debugging deal?

When Fusion becomes an actual product (not just a beta release) there will definitely be a fresh download. It won't just be a matter of somehow unlocking the software you already have. You'll download a fresh binary, with only the normal debug-support code we put into all shipping products (not the bigtime debug infrastructure we build into betas).

Pricing has not yet been announced, so there's nothing I can say about that; sorry.

2: If I were to try Parallels, which I have not yet, will Parallels recognize the install I have already done or do I need to do it all over again?

I assume you're asking whether you'll need to build a new virtual machine for use with Parallels. Parallels VMs and VMware VMs are not the same thing, so the simplest course of action is to keep 'em separate. People have successfully brought Parallels VMs into VMware Fusion, but it takes work. In the other direction, I believe our esteemed competitors have a tool for importing virtual machines. (Although VMware also has an importer tool, we have not released a version that's been tested to work with Parallels VMs.)

But my basic point is that you should not just point one product at the other product's VMs without some prior preparation.

I'm glad you're enjoying VMware Fusion.