VMware Fusion 3 released!

knowledge123

knowledge123

knowledge123

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Yay! For you virtualisers out there, Version 3 of VMware's Fusion application is now available, you can try it here.

VMware Fusion 3 has many updates, including:

  • Easiest, Fastest Way To Switch To The Mac. With the new built-in Migration Assistant for Windows, VMware Fusion 3 makes it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet or FireWire cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need ! More important, VMware Fusion 3 is more than two times faster than other “Switch to Mac” solutions without the 20% price premium of dedicated “Switch to Mac” solutions.
  • Ultimate Windows 7 Experience. VMware Fusion 3 is the FIRST virtualization product for the Mac to provide the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D. Run 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7 -- it is your choice.
  • Optimized for Snow Leopard. VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel to deliver an even better Windows on Mac experience.
  • Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. VMware was the first to provide virtual 3D graphics and is the first to support Windows Aero in a virtual machine on the Mac. VMware Fusion 3 is also first to support DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 3D graphics and now adds support for OpenGL 2.1 for Windows virtual machines to enable more Windows applications and games.
  • Run Windows Apps, The Mac Way. VMware Fusion has been designed from the beginning to make it easy to run Windows apps like Mac apps. VMware Fusion 3 makes it even better with the “Always On” Applications Menu that banishes the Windows Start menu from your Mac and let’s you find and launch Windows apps like Mac apps, even when VMware Fusion is not running. Cycle through open Windows apps with “ command ` ”, quit individual Windows applications with “command q”, and use Dock Exposé with Windows apps.
  • Maximum Performance. Finely Tuned. Building on the proven reliability and performance of VMware Fusion 2, the new 64-bit native core engine and 4-way multi-core SMP make VMware Fusion 3 perform even better especially on the Nehalem-based Mac Pro and the new iMacs, especially on the new iMac and Mac Pros. In addition, many smaller refinements increase overall performance from better disk and graphics performance on Snow Leopard, improved 2D interactive performance, faster scrolling in Windows applications, faster to enter Unity view, improved application launch times, up to 2X faster resume time for a suspended virtual machine, and much more. VMware Fusion 3 is finely tuned to make Windows run even better than before on the Mac.

and much more

30 day free trial

Will get screenies when my activation email comes though.... ~_~;;


Booting, fullscreen


Aero, fullscreen! :D


Windows 7 Experience Index (iMac 7.1, 2Ghz, 4 GB, ATi 2400)
 
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I'm interested to see how what the Windows Performance Index thingie is when running in the VM against a native bootcamp installation.
 
I have an issue with v2, interested to know if its fixed. Basically, when I click the Fusion icon in my doc, it auto loads the last Virtual machine i was using. I dont want it to do this, I want it to give me a home page type scenario like the Windows version. Does v3 sort this out, I notice it mentions various interface improvements.


Note: I'm not being lazy ;) I'm at work so cant install the trial to find out for myself :D
 
Rich said:
I have an issue with v2, interested to know if its fixed. Basically, when I click the Fusion icon in my doc, it auto loads the last Virtual machine i was using. I dont want it to do this, I want it to give me a home page type scenario like the Windows version. Does v3 sort this out, I notice it mentions various interface improvements.


Note: I'm not being lazy ;) I'm at work so cant install the trial to find out for myself :D
Click to expand...

In v2 on the main screen where it lists the VMs there is an option somewhere something like "automatically launch this virtual machine". Just untick that box if you can find it! It is maybe under preferences or something. Not infront of my machine at the mo.

Edit: this might help http://communities.vmware.com/thread/207267
 
Concorde Rules said:
Had it for a while.

Although I've only had VMWare itself for 2 months so im abit annoyed there :(
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Lucky, in some ways :p You can get money off if you're thinking of upgrading to 3.

Feek said:
I'm interested to see how what the Windows Performance Index thingie is when running in the VM against a native bootcamp installation.
Click to expand...

I can try tonight :) I have Win 7 virtualised and Vista SP2 via bootcamp.

Rich said:
I have an issue with v2, interested to know if its fixed. Basically, when I click the Fusion icon in my doc, it auto loads the last Virtual machine i was using. I dont want it to do this, I want it to give me a home page type scenario like the Windows version. Does v3 sort this out, I notice it mentions various interface improvements.

Note: I'm not being lazy ;) I'm at work so cant install the trial to find out for myself :D
Click to expand...

You're pretty much spot on, Ringo; there's a star in the OS list, to the right, if it's lit, it will boot on start.

screenshot20091027at130.jpg
 
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I use Win 7 every day all day via VMW and it's pretty cool. Here's my perf index from within VMWare.

Screenshot2009-10-27at131250.png


Direct link if you can't see it is here.
 
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I don't know if it had this ability before, but it really interests me:
Put your Windows PC and your Mac on the same network, or connect them together via FireWire or Ethernet, click the convert button, and a very Mac-like migration assistant walks you through the conversion.

At the end of the process, your physical PC has been converted into a virtual machine on your Mac, including all applications, settings, and documents.
Click to expand...

I have a Windows 2000 box sitting under the stairs, totally headless which runs my mail and web server and rather than have to faff about rebuilding it, it's really tempting to grab a second hand Mac Mini and do this, it'd be perfect.
 
My previous gen Mac Mini hosts about 6 VMWare guests and still runs my media services and file serving just fine. That's with 4Gb of RAM.

New ones go to 8, which would be even cooler.

OSX & Virtualisation is incredibly powerful in my opinion. Probably the primary reason I'm an OSX user. I spend my days building & documenting enterprise type stuff so being able to virtualise to do off site or to test things quickly... Invaluable.

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/9/28_OSX_&_Virtualisation.html
 
Find me an alternative to UI-View for the Mac and I'm sorted. The mail would be tricky but do-able, the web is easy but I'm afraid that there's just no alternative for that one piece of software *shame*
 
marc2003 said:
see, you all love windows really. ;)
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Sadly until MATLAB, Autodesk and the Finite Element Analysis programs all come to OS X im stuck with Windows.

Oh and gaming...

VMWare is HUGELY useful when doing some of those things, I can set it to use 4 cores and let it work away while I do things like write reports in OS X.

Although I have a Mac Pro and Macbook Pro so now one can run windows natively.

Oh well!
 
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