VMWare Fusion 2

VMWare logo
Sep
17

Those ever-so busy people at VMWare have released the final version of VMWare Fusion 2. For those who are using the original version of VMWare Fusion it is a free upgrade, but otherwise it's $79.99 (about £49.99). If you're interested in knowing what's changed, there's this list:

Multiple Snapshots and AutoProtect

  • Save your virtual machine in any number of states, and return to those states at any time
  • New Snapshot UI to help you manage all the snapshots you have saved
  • Automatically take snapshots at regular intervals with AutoProtect

Shared Folders Improvement and Mirrored Folders

  • Shared Folders are easier to discover. New Shared Folders option in Status bar and Virtual Machine menu. Can open all Shared Folders or just a specific Shared Folder in the virtual machine
  • Greatly improved reliability of shared folders - now compatible with Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, and QuickBooks
  • Improved compatibility running Java applications from a Shared Folder
  • Map key folders in Windows Vista and Windows XP (Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures) to their corresponding Mac folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, and Pictures)

URL Handling

  • Click on a URL in a virtual machine and open it in your favorite Mac browser, or configure your Mac to open its links in a virtual machine
  • VMware Fusion supports opening URLs of the following types: Web pages (http, https), Remote Sessions (telnet, ssh), Mail (mailto), Newsgroups (news), File transfers (ftp, sftp), and RSS feeds (feed)

Application Sharing

  • Allow your Mac to open applications in the virtual machine - Finder can now open your Mac's files directly in Windows applications like Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player
  • Allow the virtual machine to open applications on your Mac - VMware Fusion can configure virtual machines to open their files in Mac applications like Preview and iTunes
  • VMware Fusion can directly open Windows programs (.exe) and installers (.msi) in a virtual machine just by double-clicking on them in Finder

True Multiple Display Support

  • VMware Fusion automatically detects multiple displays by default
  • Your virtual machines will recognize each display you connect to your Mac as a separate virtual display
  • Handles changes to resolution and display orientation automatically
  • Option to use one or all screens in Full Screen mode
  • Unity windows can be dragged between displays, and will maximize correctly to just the display they're on
  • Correctly handles plugging and unplugging displays
  • 3D supported on primary display when using multiple displays

Unity Improvements

  • Virtual machines resume and start directly in Unity view
  • Run Linux applications directly on your Mac's desktop under Unity view (experimental)
  • Switching between Spaces desktops while in Unity view no longer causes Mac OS X to jump back and forth between Spaces
  • Quit Windows applications from the Dock icon
  • Unity windows now respect the Dock location and won't maximize underneath the Dock
  • Expose now filters out non-application windows
  • Drag and Drop to overlapped Unity windows now works
  • Cursor not hidden while typing in Unity view
  • Handle Unity windows without titles better

Graphics Improvement

  • Greatly improved 3D performance and compatibility with DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 2 software and games. (VMware Fusion runs best with the latest graphics hardware, like the NVIDIA 8800 GT, ATI Radeon HD 2600, and ATI Radeon HD 3870.)
  • When playing high-definition video (720p, 1080i, 1080p) in a Windows XP or Windows Vista virtual machine, VMware Fusion now uses hardware acceleration for smooth video playback
  • Freely resize your virtual machine's window and enter and exit Full Screen view while playing games

Experimental Support for Mac OS X Server Virtual Machines

  • You can create Mac OS X Server 10.5 virtual machines (experimental support). Due to Apple licensing restrictions, the standard edition of Mac OS X 10.5 is not supported in a virtual machine

Virus Protection and Firewall Included for Windows XP and Vista Virtual Machines

  • To keep your Windows-on-Mac experience as safe as possible, VMware Fusion includes a complimentary 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus to protect your Windows investment

UI Enhancements

  • Fully localized in six languages: French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, and Spanish
  • Install Linux painlessly and automatically with Linux Easy Install in the New Virtual Machine Assistant (Note: Not all Linux distributions currently support Linux Easy Install)
  • Cut and paste text and styled text up to 4 MB
  • Status icons glow when there is activity
  • A screen shot of the last suspended state of a virtual machine is displayed in Quick Look and Cover Flow
  • You can remap keyboard and mouse input
  • VMware Fusion's keyboard support is now compatible with Quicken, Google Earth, last.fm, and other software that previously could cause a "beep" each time a key was pressed
  • The vmrun command line interface is available for scripting

New Virtual Machine Library

  • Provides greatly improved management of virtual machines
  • Shows screen shot of last or active states
  • Option to set a virtual machine to be started automatically when VMware Fusion is launched
  • Easily find your virtual machines on your hard drive with the Show in Finder option
  • Menus now act on whichever virtual machine is selected in the Library window
  • You can move old and unused virtual machines to the Trash directly from the Library

New Settings Editor

  • Provides quick overview of all virtual machine settings
  • Works just like System Preferences
  • Works in Unity, Full Screen, and Single Window views
  • Add existing virtual hard drives to virtual machines and even optionally copy them into the virtual machine bundle

Integrated VMware Importer

  • Just choose File > Import to import your Parallels Desktop and Virtual PC for Mac virtual machines
  • Outputs a completely new VMware virtual machine based on the input virtual machine
  • Importation process is nondestructive, so you can continue to use the original source virtual machine with the product used to create the source virtual machine
  • Import your Boot Camp partition to a true virtual machine and take advantage of suspend/resume and snapshots

Driver-less Printing

  • Virtual machines automatically pick up your default Mac printer and all configured Mac printers. No need to install drivers in the virtual machine

Broader Hardware and Software Support

  • Support over ninety operating systems
  • VMware Fusion supports 64-bit Vista Boot Camp; handles activation for Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007
  • Experimental support for 4-way SMP (note: Windows Vista and Windows XP limit themselves to two CPUs)
  • USB Improvements
    • Allow USB mice/tablets in a virtual machine without custom configuration
    • Faster USB Storage performance
    • USB devices are recognized by type in the Status bar
    • Improved USB robustness including:
      • Canon DR-2580c no longer hangs after scanning documents
      • Now able to sync BlackBerry Pearl devices
      • Able to print from Kodak AiO 5100 in Windows virtual machines

Networking Improvements

  • Virtual machines in Bridged networking mode know when your Mac's network connection is available or become unavailable, and will refresh their network address automatically
  • DNS and WINS server pass-through with NAT networking
  • Browse for Bonjour printers with NAT networking
  • Improved performance when using NAT networking
  • Manual option to override the MAC address to any MAC address in VMX settings file, previously limited to VMware-specific MAC addresses
  • Automatically obtain a new DHCP lease when switching between NAT/Bridged networking
  • Windows guests now able to join Active Directory domain with NAT networking if WINS is enabled on Mac OS X
  • Improved compatibility with wireless bridged networking and certain DHCP/routers

Full Screen Improvements

  • Virtual machines resume and start directly in Full Screen view
  • Full Screen can use one or all displays on the Mac
  • Supports super large displays that are over 2048 (MacBook and MacBook Air) or 4096 (iMac, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro) pixels wide

Support for Virtual Hard Disks

  • You can mount the virtual disk of a powered-off Windows virtual machine using VMDKMounter (Mac OS X 10.5 or higher)
  • You now have the ability to resize virtual disks

Wow, that is quite some list! The very last point about resizing your virtual disks is a very handy one - just three days ago I had to use the command-line to resize my virtual disk and now it's there in the new version!! Anyway, I'm going to go and try it now...

your comments - Post a comment

blog comments powered by Disqus