VMWare Fusion

...enthusiasts. With the introduction of VMWare Fusion on the Mac, virtual computing could be making more of a dent in the home consumer market... and heres why.

A little over a year or so ago Apple Inc, (formally Apple Computer), announced a transition to Intel processors from their former PowerPC architecture. What does this mean for the rest of us? Well, it means more power, more efficient use of battery life and more importantly other ...
...this being a program from VMWare that it should be of a very decent quality... and I was right.

In a nutshell, VMWare Fusion allows your Intel Mac to run many x86 operating systems; Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, Ubuntu Linux, Suse Linux and Solaris to name just a few of many. You install the virtual machine just like you'd install your chosen operating system on a physical computer. You insert your CD or DVD, tell Fusion what you're ... more

Virtual Computing is something that's sky rocketing in the IT industry. Being able to run multiple operating systems that behave as if they were installed on separate machines in their own right has many advantages - one of which saving money on excess hardware.

Up until now, running virtual machines was something mainly only those working in the IT industry did, along with possibly some software developers looking to test their products under different OS' and technology enthusiasts. With the introduction of VMWare Fusion on the Mac, virtual computing could be making more of a dent in the home consumer market... and heres why.

A little over a year or so ago Apple Inc, (formally Apple Computer), announced a transition to Intel processors from their former PowerPC architecture. What does this mean for the rest of us? Well, it means more power, more efficient use of battery life and more importantly other operating systems can be ran on your desktop or notebook Mac computers.

A lot of people looking to make the switch to a Mac worry about one thing... and thats losing the familiarity of some well known Windows applications for those under Apple's OS X Operating System. Others are concerned about the fact that they have possibly one or two 'Windows - only' applications that won't directly run on a Mac and so it holds them back.

Because of the shift to the Intel processor, VMWare, a leading enterprise virtualization company, has developed Fusion to allow anyone with a Mac computer to run Windows XP right alongside their OS X operating system. Not only that, but other flavours of Windows as well as many Linux distro's too.

Lets get stuck in shall we :)

First Impressions
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Unlike hardware, software doesn't offer any kind of first impression of its build quality or its 'feel' - this is something you learn about by actually using the product in question. I knew right up front, however, with this being a program from VMWare that it should be of a very decent quality... and I was right.

In a nutshell, VMWare Fusion allows your Intel Mac to run many x86 operating systems; Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, Ubuntu Linux, Suse Linux and Solaris to name just a few of many. You install the virtual machine just like you'd install your chosen operating system on a physical computer. You insert your CD or DVD, tell Fusion what you're planning on installing, allocate some memory and create a 'Virtual Hard Disk' - This is simply a file on your Mac which the virtual machine sees as a proper hard drive and it's where all your files for the virtual machine go.

It may sound complicated to some of you, but in reality it isn't hard to get your head round how Fusion works. Follow the wizard, insert your disk and away you go - that's as basic as it gets.

Fancy trying Linux? Nows your chance!
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A LOT of people who I know have, at some point in the past, mentioned that they'd like to try out a flavour of Linux but they don't want the hassle of either buying a new machine or clearing out an old one in case they don't like it. With virtual computing, like Fusion in this case, you really don't need to. You can install pretty much any flavour of Linux, play around with it and if you don't like it.... delete it from your computer. Your Mac comes out of the whole experience unscathed.

Performance
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Performance is key when using a virtual machine. You have to remember that your Mac may have 1GB of memory installed, but each virtual machine needs to have some of that allocated just for it's own personal use whilst it's running. For example I have a flavour of Linux installed, Ubuntu in this case, and I've told it that it can have a quarter of my 1GB of memory. When I start it up, the virtual machine takes its allocation to perform. This leaves your Mac with LESS than 1GB of memory to use.

In other words, and for arguments sake, let's say I wanted to run three virtual machines on my Mac at once and all wanted to use a quarter of my 1GB of memory. I would - in effect - only have 256MB of memory left for my Mac Operating System..... it cannot run on 256MB effectively. The more memory available the better.

However, when we look to Fusions performance its extremely good. I could run Linux and Windows under Fusion without any serious glitches whatsoever. I could open multiple programs and it felt somewhat nippier than my desktop sitting in the other room at times (!). Thanks to Fusions tool set, you can run one file on many virtual machines that automatically set up the sound, video card and other things such as the mouse and networking - no additional drivers needed.

Got external USB devices? No problem!
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Fusion can automatically detect just about any USB device that you plug into your Mac and with a couple of clicks, you can have them interface with your virtual machine. So let's say you had a Word document on a USB Memory Stick and you wanted to edit it. The problem you're facing is Word isn't on your Mac... it's only on your Fusion Virtual Machine of Windows XP. Simply fire up Windows XP, plug in your USB Memory Stick and tell fusion to connect to it. It will appear under XP ready for use in a few seconds flat.

Got an iSight? You'll love this, because Fusion can also use your iSight webcam under Windows too!

Fusion can take you back in time.... in a way
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One of the reasons I bought VMWare Fusion was so I could beta test windows products and have the ability to 'roll back' my machine to a time before I tried out the program in question. Windows XP has a feature called System Restore but it's not quite the same thing. Let me explain

Say you installed Windows XP as a virtual machine under Fusion and installed, say, Office 2007, Windows Live Messenger and a couple of other applications. You could then create a 'Snapshot' of whats currently there. Once this snapshot is made you can do whatever you want to that virtual machine because once you restore the snapshot you took... everything is back as to what it was at the time you made the snapshot. You could install and test some new programs, play about ith Windows a little bit and then restore the virtual machine to what it was before you mucked about. It's a really handy tool that I find is one of Fusions killer features.

Unity
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For me, Unity is THE best feature of Fusion. It's one thing to be able to open Microsoft Office Word 2007 inside a virtual copy of Windows XP.... it's another thing to have it sitting right on your OS X desktop.

This is what Unity does! Instead of having to sit and look at a Windows XP desktop in order to use your Windows applications, you can click the Unity button and suddenly XP vanishes from view! Your XP applications, however, appear right on your OS X desktop as if they were running natively. They even get their own icon on your Dock. You feel as if they were proper Mac programs and it really REALLY does add to the productivity! Buy it for this if nothing else! It really is THAT good a feature!

Networking - It's real easy
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I won't go through all the network features that Fusion brings to the table, but I will go over a couple of interesting points. First and foremost, if you allow it that is, you can have any or all your virtual machines sharing your Mac's internet connection with no configuration required. You simply enable the network option before you start up your Virtual Machine and when its loaded you can open the web browser and you should see the internet in all its glory :)

You can choose to have Fusion share the current IP of the Mac, OR you can have the virtual machine grab its own IP should you have a local area network. This is handy should you want to map drives on or from various virtual machines with other virtual or physical machines. You could have a virtual machine running Windows XP but want to access files from it on another XP machine sitting somewhere else in the building. Sharing the same IP as the Mac would make this near impossible, but having the Virtual Machine grab it's own address simplifies the process.

In a nutshell, if you're not an advanced user, or just someone who wants the internet to work in their virtual machines then just ensure networking is ticked before you run your virtual machine. Everything 'just works' out of the box.

Why would you want Fusion?
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You can answer that question better than me. Just think... is there ANYTHING you might require Windows for if you had just a Mac available to you? If so, then is it something you could do on the Mac using other software or not? If the answer is no then you'll need Fusion. Use the Mac Operating System and have the ability to load Windows for when you need it... and close it when you're done.

Some ideas of why you may need Fusion?

+ You develop Windows software and want to be able to do it on a MacBook whilst on the move
+ You want to make the move but rely on a few Windows-Only applications you simply cannot drop right now.
+ Need access to multiple operating systems on one machine
+ Looking to test Linux without buying a new machine
+ Looking to create 'virtual servers' saving money on buying new physical hardware.

What will it cost me?
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Fusion was available to pre-order for just £19.99 up until the 5th August 2007 when it became £40. This is an absolute bargain for what it can do for you. VMWare are currently also offering a mail in rebate but I'm unsure if this is for US customers only or for everyone.

You'll need to provide your own copy of Windows, however for some Linux operating systems VMWare offer pre-configured Virtual Machines to download from their website. These are mostly free so take advantage of this as best you can :)

The program is a small file and doesn't require much hard drive space at all. Where you'll need space is when you come to create and use Virtual Machines. If Windows needs 2GB on a physical machine then it'll need this space as a Virtual Machine. Keep this in mind.

Conclusion
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I've hardly touched the surface of what Fusion can really do, but it's hard to describe a program like this without going off the rails a bit - the main feature is being able to run operating systems like Windows XP on your Mac; going any further into this would mean I talk about Windows XP... and I'm not here for that :P

VMWare Fusion is an EXCELLENT product which I strongly recommend. It's easy to use, full of features and works extremely well without slowing down your Mac a lot really.... and performance really is key to a lot of people, including myself.

If you need any more convincing, then you can download a 30 day trial of Fusion from VMWare's website. Go check it out today... you won't be disappointed. ;)

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