VMware Fusion Review
Thu 6 Dec 2007Filed Under: Apple Computers, Computers, VMware Fusion
Since I can’t completely stop using Windows based programs so I have been trying SWSoft Parallels and VMWare Fusion to run Windows XP on my new MacBook. What I’m doing is generally called virtualization.
For the non-techies it means that I have Windows XP running along side or within Mac OS X Leopard. It runs like an application under OS X with all the functionality you’d expect from Windows XP. I also created a shared drive so both operating systems can use the same files if needed. The shared drive uses the OS X file system so no need to format.
In the end I chose VMWare Fusion because it seemed to work as well if not with a tad more polish than Parallels. The price was the same.
So far having the two run simultaneously has been fantastic. VMWare sets up everything needed to windows to work, including drivers for the monitor, sound card, network both wireless and wired. I didn’t need to put in new driver disks or anything – it simply worked!
All I need to do now is to install all the programs I used under XP and everything will be fine again.
I could have used Apple’s Boot Camp but that means I have to boot the computer with XP and I didn’t want to partition my hard drive or not be able to switch between Operating systems.
