http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/vmware-fusion/

Is anyone familiar with this program?

How well does it work?

Apparently it allows one to switch from a Mac to a PC program with no need to reboot.

If it works as well as indicated, it would sure be convenient.

Thanks.

Daly

No personal experience (I've used Parallels for the same thing), but one of my developers does use and like it. I'm confident it works as advertised.

One thing that I've wondered about Fusion and Parallels is do you also have to buy a copy of Windows? How does that work? Can you just use a copy that came with your latest PC?

Steve Z.

Hi.

I use Parallels on my Mac Mini to run Windows XP and Vista. XP runs fine; Vista is a bit slow, and sometimes I get error messages stating that an application was not allowed to save temporary data to disk (but I never lost data).

Re:
"One thing that I?ve wondered about Fusion and Parallels is do you also have to buy a copy of Windows? How does that work? Can you just use a copy that came with your latest PC?"

I installed a copy of XP that I also have on my desktop PC. I was asked to enter the registration number - that was all.

Franz

I use Fusion to run an XP VM on my 15-inch MacBook Pro. I upgraded to 4 GB, and in general don't see any performance issues. It's incredibly useful. You do need to provide your own copy of XP.

However, I do try to avoid starting Fusion up, as its resource consumption is noticeable at times. It is most noticeable when I'm on battery - my battery life is reduced by at least 33% when Windows is up within Fusion. This became more apparent when I upgraded my hard drive to a 7200 RPM model.

It is also noticeable when I'm running memory-intensive apps in MacOS, like Lightroom, Photoshop, or Illustrator. I make sure to shut down Fusion before starting those apps.

Hey, I see lots of people talking about running WinXP on a Mac using Fusion, how about the other way around?
Can I run MacOS on an XP machine using fusion?

Alas, running OS X on a PC is very difficult, and, believe it or not, illegal (at least, if you believe Apple). Apple is very restrictive about the hardware on which their OS runs. It has to be a Mac. They are almost as restrictive about which software runs on their ipod.

It's not that I like Microsoft either ...


I would run OS X on a Virtual Machine, because there are two or three applications that I would run: Scrivener, Mellel (which is an excellent word processor for academic writing), and perhaps one of the Outliners. I acquired a Mac (through the university) to try out all the stuff. Yet, I found DevonThink rather disappointing. that was the program I had really had lusted after, based on all the good press. It turned to be more hype than reality. The same thing held for Voodoopad.

I ultimately returned because ConnectedText and AutoHotkey are the applications that I use most.

Manfred

Manfred, can you say why you found DEVONthink disappointing? Were you using it as a central storage site for all kinds of data of various types?

Thanks.

Daly

Yes, I was trying to use it as a central repository for all my information?the way I use ConnectedText. On the positive side: Everything that I exported from ConnectedText, imported correctly into DevonThink.And , to be fair, the way the Mac handles rtf files is much better than anything on the PC. Voodoopad, which I even bought, also imported my information very well.

But I found the folder structure clunky and unintuitive. Linking the entries also not as easy as I would have liked, and the smart search was just disappointing. It did not seem to provide anything significant beyond Boolean searches. (By the way, Voodoopad's search capabilities are very weak).

When I tried it, Devonthink could not have more than one file open. I understand that this has been changed now.

I think I wrote about this a year or two ago already, but I would have to check when.

Hoping this helps,
Manfred