Hi David,

I'm happy to help.

I'll install this build. Question:

1) should I install it with the settings I currently have (I downgraded my Virtual Machine -- which took the boot times from almost 9 minutes to about 3 1/2 minutes), or would you prefer I change something first (Upgrade the Virtual Machine)?

3 1/2 minute boot times would drive me nuts; I think this was about the time it was taking mine to boot, initially, in 2.0. Did you check the 'Applications' folder in your VM? I moved the app files out of here and it appeared to help me. I do have a slightly different setup, though.

OK. This is definitely a problem. I'd like to help narrow this down by asking a few questions:

1) Is this your (non-Boot Camp) Windows Vista Ultimate VM that you previously talked about, or is it another VM?

2) Was this VM created with VMware Fusion 1, or was it imported from Parallels or another product?

3) Can you please reply to this post and attach your VM's configuration (.vmx) and vmware.log files after a sluggish boot? You can get your VM's configuration file by going to Finder, browsing to your Documents/Virtual Machines folder, then control-clicking or right clicking on your VM and choosing "Show Package Contents".

4) Can you try powering off your VM, then opening your VM's configuration (.vmx) file in TextEdit, and looking for lines like:

pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge5.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge6.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge7.present = "TRUE"

and changing them to:

pciBridge0.present = "FALSE"
pciBridge4.present = "FALSE"
pciBridge5.present = "FALSE"
pciBridge6.present = "FALSE"
pciBridge7.present = "FALSE"

then start up your VM again.

Thanks,

Ben

OK. We have reproduced this issue (imported Parallels Vista VMs take an excruciatingly long time to boot once upgraded to Hardware Version 7).

To confirm you're hitting this issue, please right click on My Computer, select Manage, and go to Event Viewer. If you see tons and tons of lines like:

"IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 24, function 3. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance."

then this is definitely the issue with the new PCI bridge devices in Hardware Version 7 conflicting with something Parallels has done to make Vista work with their ACPI implementation.

Hi Ben,

All pcibridge*.* entries were already set to 'FALSE', except pcibridge0, which I changed from TRUE to FALSE.
Attached are the log files you asked for.

FWIW, when I switched over from Parallels, it didn't go smooth. So, maybe my issue has something to do with that? I'm getting a new MacBook Pro in another month or so and I plan to install Fusion and Vista from scratch. So I'm sure that'll help.

Thanks!

Hmm, that's odd. Did you change them to FALSE yourself?


The log file says you were running virtual hardware version 6, which means the VM had not been upgraded to version 7. Were you encountering the slow boot times before upgrading the virtual hardware? I thought you saw them after upgrading.


What happened when you switched over from Parallels?

I see that you have a Seagate USB storage device directly connected to the virtual machine. It looks like you might also have the Apple iSight set to directly connect.

Can you try disconnecting these devices from the menu Virtual Machine -> USB to see if that helps at all?

Hi,

No I don't run it continually. I resume it, work in it, 30 mins/day, suspend it.

I expect it to see when 24hrs have passed since last time suspended, or working or whatever and then to snapshot it. Who runs Win 24hrs?? I have a Mac!