VMware Fusion® (for Mac) : Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings : Comments

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

happyjean — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:59:58 GMT

Thank you for all the info. i guess that i want a virtual machine. originally i had installed windows thru boot camp and allocated 50gb but if i am understanding you correctly if i use the regular virtual machine then i let it use what is needed and i don't have to partition anything is this correct? happy jean

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

tjc41 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:15:51 GMT

RE: Networking. When I installed 1.1, the last window says: The Following Install Step failed: Run postflight script for VMWare Fusion. My Win XP will then open ok, but I get a window that says: Could not open /dev/vmnet8: No such file or directory, Virtual device Ethernet0 will start disconnected. Of course, I then have no network connection. What to do? tjc41@mac.com

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

etung — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:21:12 GMT

You could try a search for "postflight script failed". This isn't a great place to ask general Fusion questions; if you still need help, please start a new discussion

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

GaryAg — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:53:12 GMT

etung: This is the information I have been searching for for the last 4 hours. I read the Beginners Guide to Fusion" earlier but somehow skipped over this link. May I suggest that VMWare include this particular discussion in their pamphlet that came with the package that I purchased. This discussion should be in the front of that pamphlet listed under the title something like "Strategies and Choices For Installing Fusion and/or Boot Camp"

Thanks, G. Silver

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

marklewis — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:03:53 GMT

Under BootCamp you state:Converting to a normal virtual machine is relatively easy.
It may be easy, but I don't know how to do it and cannot find how in the documentation, unless I've been reading the wrong documents, which is probable.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

jtn — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:18:35 GMT

thanks for all the info. quick question about the easy install option for home folder sharing. during set-up i chose to enable read & write privileges to my home folder. if i now want to change this option to "read only", do i simply go to virtual machine > settings > shared folders, and check read-only? is this shared folder the same home folder referred to in set-up? i want to make sure the rest of my host osx is protected from guest writing. thanks!

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

etung — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:20:25 GMT

marklewis: Two ways to do it are using Converter, or using vmware-vdiskmanager to clone the raw partition .vmdk into a file .vmdk.

jtn: Yep, that's all you have to do. All the checkbox in the Easy Installer does is set up the shared home folder.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

marklewis — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:32:35 GMT

I have tried using converter but with absolutely no success. wmare-diskmanager is something I have never heard of. If I can find it, I will try it. Thanks.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

marcusbrittanicus — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:44:10 GMT

I installed Xp pro 32 bit on a 20gb virtual disc, run out of space and its not even fully installed yet! just transferring my documents.
Any ideas anyone, and how if needed do I increase the disc size??

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

etung — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:20:34 GMT

XP should not take 20 GB to install, my guess is that you're running out of space on the Mac itself. If this is the case, you'll need to free up space on the Mac.

Please post general questions in the discussions section, not on this document.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

mrgermany — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:25:25 GMT

You describe a "normal virtual machine", but neither the VM documentation nor this thread EXPLICITLY state how to install VMFusion on a "normal virtual machine". Do I simply insert the CD and select my Macintosh HD as the destination volume?

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

etung — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:23:52 GMT

Create a new virtual machine (VMware Fusion > New...) and follow the assistant.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

mrgermany — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:52:54 GMT

Great! Thanks! So I simply insert the CD and select my Macintosh HD as the destination volume?

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

flipdoubt — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:26:34 GMT

Do I get any advantage out of enabling 3-D acceleration if I use my VM primarily for non-graphics processing, such as compiling code and debugging applications? Are there any disadvantages to enabling 3-D acceleration?

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

laloula — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:18:19 GMT

*GaryAg, I wholeheartedly agree. Most people want to understand the pros and cons of options before making them, but "virtually" all tech manuals tell how, but not why, right up front. Every piece of software should include a "Read this first to figure out best installation options for you." Even with this doc, I don't know from this statement (about pro of using Bootcamp) >>Can boot natively into the guest OS for full access to hardware - useful if you need ... absolute maximum CPU/network/RAM">> what the practical performance loss would be using a normal virtual machine instead of Bootcamp. This is probably a key concern for many users.

I set up my virtual machine to work off Bootcamp, so I'd have the Bootcamp option. But now I am having XP reactivation issues -- I think because I bought an OEM version of XP. I'd really like to know what actual performance loss I would experience running applications like MS Office Suite, Visio, or elearning apps like Lectura or Adobe Presenter. If the performance loss is negligible for such apps, and if using a normal virtual machine will prevent the reactivation nightmare, then I would obviously do that.

How do I find performance data? I don't care about charts--I want to know this from a real-word working perspective.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

topplay — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:40:12 GMT

Thank you for this helpful document.
With regard to the "What Type of Disk?" section, I would like to know what settings I chose when I set up my virtual machine several months ago but can't remember.

I think I have a split disk (bacause inside the vmwarevm package I see several vmdk files that are all smaller than 2gb). Is that correct?
How do I establish if I used a sparse or pre-allocated disk?

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

C1Mathis — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:15:56 GMT

As I'm a newbie, I installed VM with the standard disk space. A few months later, I've decided that 40GB is way more than I need, and with only a 111GB hard drive, more that I can afford.
Half that would be fine. I did a search and found the utility to shrink the partition size to 20GB, but could not figure out a way to release the other 20GB back to the Mac. I'm guessing that's not possible.
My system is pretty simple, so I decide to make a new VM and just recreate the thing. However, when I get to the "Customize Settings" tab, all if gives me is a drop down menu like I'm supposed to navigate to something. I even tried to create the Custom VM, but got the same drop down.

Can you release the unused partition back to the Mac?
How do you make a smaller than default VM partition?

Thanks. all in all, a great product.

RE: Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings

mrigler — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:27:57 GMT

I have an error after installing VMware fusion 2.06
"A fatal error has occurred
Please notify the Proctor
The desktop environment does not meet the necessary requirements.hres:725 colors:32"

Can anyone help? Thanks Mark R