VMware Fusion 3 enables the use of Windows, Linux and Mac virtual machines on a physical Mac system. Fusion 3 is competitive with Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition and Sun VirtualBox, with a slight lead in terms of day-to-day operations. While VMware Fusion 3 is aimed at individual users, the product is a worthwhile choice for IT departments that are switching PC systems to Macs.VMware Fusion 3--which enables the use of Windows, Linux and Mac
virtual machines on a physical Mac system--goes head-to-head with
Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition. The new VMware offering comes
up a hair short in ease of use, but edges ahead in operations that
matter on a daily basis.
Released on Oct. 27, the $80 VMware Fusion 3 uses a migration agent
that made converting an existing PC into a virtual machine on the Mac a
straightforward process during my tests (taking about 20 minutes to
complete).
VMware Fusion 3 Makes It Easy to Run Windows on a Mac. Check Out eWEEK Labs' Image Gallery.
The $100 Parallels competitor includes effective video-based
training that shows new Mac "switchers" how to perform familiar Windows
operations on a Mac. These training supplements, along with a
dead-simple transfer process (see my review here),
make the Parallels tool a better choice for truly new Mac converts. For
Mac pros, VMware Fusion 3 includes slight technology advantages that
push it over the comparable Parallels or Sun VirtualBox offerings.
While VMware Fusion 3 is aimed at individual users, the product is a
worthwhile choice for IT departments that are switching PC systems to
Macs. The VMware migration agent--which is installed on the source
computer (the PC)--makes short work of the arduous task of manually
reinstalling Windows applications and then moving over user data.
During tests, the VMware Fusion 3 migration tool correctly
virtualized a system running Windows XP Server Pack 3 that was loaded
on a ThinkPad X40 with an Intel Pentium M processor and 1GB of RAM. My
test Mac was a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard with a 2.53GHz Intel
Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. The process seamlessly
brought over the Microsoft Office 2003 suite of productivity
applications, Mozilla, the Cisco VPN client and a media player, among
other apps.
I didn't need to reactivate my Windows OS nor the Microsoft
applications that were ported to my Windows virtual machine. While the
VMware Fusion 3 system makes clear that reactivation is sometimes
needed, and that creating a virtual machine from a physical system
can sometimes be a license violation, I did not experience any
activation problems during my tests.
Creating a Windows 7 Virtual Machine
VMware Fusion can integrate or isolate Windows virtual machines from
the Mac OS X environment. I created a Windows 7 virtual machine that
was integrated, so that applications and documents on my MacBook Pro
physical system were easily shared with the Windows 7 virtual machine.
In this configuration, the Windows system was able to modify documents
in the Mac environment, so antivirus software is recommended. (VMware
Fusion comes with a with 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan
Plus.)
In all my test cases, the wireless connectivity from the virtual
machine to the Internet worked as soon as installation was completed,
and applications worked as expected. Hardware-specific utilities that
were installed on the ThinkPad system, of course, did not work in the
Mac, and I simply removed them from the Windows XP virtual machine. I
was pleased to see that the absence of the hardware for which these
utilities were needed did not panic the VMware Fusion virtual machine.
Technical Director Cameron Sturdevant can be reached at csturdevant@eweek.com.
