Launch Win apps. from mac not working after upgrade to 3.1

[Ruvy]

Hi

Just installed evaluation copy to upgrade from Fusion 2 to 3.1. 3.1 advantages are yet to be seen but in the mean time I am unable to launch files and applications from the Mack as I did with v2 all along. Strangely there is no support for evaluators which means if I can't solve this issue I'll have to give up on 3.1 and future upgrades and stay with v2 (not a big deal)

Any help of getting v3.1 working as should will be most appreciated - I'll enjoy the work and VMware will enjoy the income - don't you want to help them?

Ruvy

[mudaltsov]

By "VM" I'm referring to the virtual machine bundle, not the VMware Fusion application.

The virtual machines are typically located in /Users/(username)/Documents/Virtual Machines/. You can also right-click on the VM in Fusion's Library, and choose "Show in Finder" to get to it. I suggest reading if you'd like to learn more about how virtual machines are stored.

[Ruvy]

OK, so I found the virtual machines and in it, in /windows xp/ i found content with applications. I have removed the applications folders and application cash folder and restarted - nothing had changed a minute or two after windows finished loading I still get the same error message

any other idea?

[mudaltsov]

Could you please reproduce the error message, and then attach a copy of the following log file:

/Users/(username)/Library/Logs/VMware Fusion/vmware-vmfusion.log

It should help narrow down why the error is happening.

In general, it may be ok to ignore the error if you see applications being populated inside the Applications folder in the Virtual Machine bundle. You should still be able to use these to launch Windows apps from the Mac as you did with Fusion 2.

Note that with Fusion 3 these applications won't show up in the dock unless you are running in Unity. However, you can still place them in the Dock or choose them in the Open With list for files, and the appropriate Windows application should launch regardless of the view mode.

[Ruvy]

Thanks

I have attached the file.

When you mention "Applications folder in the Virtual Machine bundle" do you mean user/documents/virtual machines/windows xp… content/applications?

If this is the one you mean, its loaded with apps some of them show up 2-3 times.

I am not sure what you mean by bundle here or what folder it is (I did read the link you send earlier)

[mudaltsov]

I have attached the file.

Thanks, the error in the log file points to a known issue in Fusion when trying to publish the DivX application from Windows. The error is mistakenly reported as a permissions error even when permissions are correct. This error will be resolved in a future update to Fusion. For now you can just click on Ignore, and everything else should still work correctly. The error will only show up once per startup of Fusion.

When you mention "Applications folder in the Virtual Machine bundle" do you mean user/documents/virtual machines/windows xp… content/applications?

If this is the one you mean, its loaded with apps some of them show up 2-3 times.

I am not sure what you mean by bundle here or what folder it is (I did read the link you send earlier)

Yes, by "Virtual Machine bundle" I mean the bundle (or package) in which the virtual machine files are stored. As the beginner's guide explains, that's where the virtual machine disk and configuration files are stored together. The Applications directory there contains the Windows applications that Fusion publishes to the Mac, to make them available in Unity, as well as for opening specific file types and links from the Mac using Windows apps.

[Ruvy]

Mudaltsov

Thank you so very much for all your help and for expanding my horizons too.

One more question though: when I look at the applications of windows listed there I see many doubles and triples of same app. How can I keep pnly one of each?. Also, wanting to reduce sizes, how can I get rid of apps I never use - is it just removing them from windows?

again, your help is much appreciated

Ruvy

[mudaltsov]

Do you see duplicates of all applications, or just a few specific ones? Could you post a list (or screenshot) of the duplicates?

Fusion currently publishes applications from the Windows start menu, as well as any applications that are registered to handle various file types in Windows. So removing the applications from the start menu or uninstalling them from Windows will stop re-publishing them on the Mac. However, previously published applications are currently not removed automatically, so you would have to delete them afterwards.

Another way to prevent publishing of applications is to turn off the "Open your Mac files and web links using Windows applications" option in VM Settings -> Applications -> Default Applications panel. This will stop publishing the Windows applications altogether, and will remove all previous file type association information from previously published applications.

Of course this is probably not ideal for your case (if you actually want to keep the file associations). We are working on more fine-grained control over which applications get published for future versions of Fusion.

[Ruvy]

list attached

[mudaltsov]

That looks fairly normal - only a few apps show up with more than one copy, and even those are likely different .exe files that happen to have the same name internally (at least the icons are different). We're working on narrowing down the list of published applications, and retrieving a more useful application name if possible, for future versions of Fusion.

[Ruvy]

Thanks

For what its worth in my use, v2 of vmware fusion was better in two areas:

1 - I was able to retain icons of windows apps in the dock at all times and didn't have to run vmware in the background with all the cpu and memory resources it takes away from my mack when not needed but wonder how much are they?

2 - also v2.0 got into a lot of duplicates but when I ran ONYX on my mac it cleaned the duplicates (not sure what part of it did it) which is not doing dow.

Considering these two disadvantages, I wonder if there are some advantages that I can see and feel (as opposed to specs only) and what are they?

[mudaltsov]

1 - I was able to retain icons of windows apps in the dock at all times and didn't have to run vmware in the background with all the cpu and memory resources it takes away from my mack when not needed but wonder how much are they?

You can still place the published Windows applications in the Dock - either by manually dragging them there from the Applications directory inside the VM bundle, or by running the VM in Unity, and choosing the "Keep in Dock" option from the right-click menu on the Dock icon for the app. You can then use it to launch the application in Windows, even if the VM is in single window mode, or even if Fusion is not running. Fusion 3.1 has actually improved this behavior, and the VM window will be brought to front appropriately when starting the Windows application.

Note that unless you run in Unity mode, the Dock icon won't keep track of the running Windows application (the highlighted dot won't be there). Fusion 2 had an issue where the icon in the Dock sometimes appeared to be running, but it was not actually reflecting the state of the Windows application.

2 - also v2.0 got into a lot of duplicates but when I ran ONYX on my mac it cleaned the duplicates (not sure what part of it did it) which is not doing dow.

Could you explain what exactly you mean by "duplicates"? As far as I can see, a few applications appear to have the same name, so they get published in a numbered sequence. However, this is the result of having distinct .exe files in Windows, with the same application name. I'm not really sure why ONYX would have removed any of these before - that could have interfered with Fusion's ability to run these applications in Unity mode.

Considering these two disadvantages, I wonder if there are some advantages that I can see and feel (as opposed to specs only) and what are they?

Everyone has a different notion of advantages, so you'll have to judge for yourself. There is a full list of new and improved features for all the Fusion 3.x releases:

[Ruvy]

For the most parts my issues were resolved. I didn't run unity on v2 so I can't really compare the two but the way I ran v2 I can't point my finger in a direction of noticeable improvement in performance.

To reply to your question about multiple registrations of same application. No, there are no multiple exe files of major programs such as word, microstation autocad, excel and their alike. In v2 when I wanted to open a file from file manager's "open with"…. I was presented with a list of applications. All mac apps showed up once but the windows application could show up as many false versions like "word"," word 2.0", "word 2.11", "word 2.12"… and so on. Please be advised that I don't remember the exact wording of these false versions names.

After running Onyx all the versions disappeared and only "word" was the application and no, for the once or twice I have tried unity it didn't have any affect. After a while, slowly but surely one version and than more and more false versions had been added to the list until my next maintenance session with Onyx and so on.

For the time being, with v3.1 I see only one win app for each file type. Hope it stays that way and again, my deepest thanks for your help. Chances are good you have earned my purchase of 3.1

[Ruvy]

For the most parts my issues were resolved. I didn't run unity on v2 so I can't really compare the two but the way I ran v2 I can't point my finger in a direction of noticeable improvement in performance.

To reply to your question about multiple registrations of same application. No, there are no multiple exe files of major programs such as word, microstation autocad, excel and their alike. In v2 when I wanted to open a file from file manager's "open with"…. I was presented with a list of applications. All mac apps showed up once but the windows application could show up as many false versions like "word"," word 2.0", "word 2.11", "word 2.12"… and so on. Please be advised that I don't remember the exact wording of these false versions names.

After running Onyx all the versions disappeared and only "word" was the application and no, for the once or twice I have tried unity it didn't have any affect. After a while, slowly but surely one version and than more and more false versions had been added to the list until my next maintenance session with Onyx and so on.

For the time being, with v3.1 I see only one win app for each file type. Hope it stays that way and again, my deepest thanks for your help. Chances are good you have earned my purchase of 3.1

[Ruvy]

For the most parts my issues were resolved. I didn't run unity on v2 so I can't really compare the two but the way I ran v2 I can't point my finger in a direction of noticeable improvement in performance.

To reply to your question about multiple registrations of same application. No, there are no multiple exe files of major programs such as word, microstation autocad, excel and their alike. In v2 when I wanted to open a file from file manager's "open with"…. I was presented with a list of applications. All mac apps showed up once but the windows application could show up as many false versions like "word"," word 2.0", "word 2.11", "word 2.12"… and so on. Please be advised that I don't remember the exact wording of these false versions names.

After running Onyx all the versions disappeared and only "word" was the application and no, for the once or twice I have tried unity it didn't have any affect. After a while, slowly but surely one version and than more and more false versions had been added to the list until my next maintenance session with Onyx and so on.

For the time being, with v3.1 I see only one win app for each file type. Hope it stays that way and again, my deepest thanks for your help. Chances are good you have earned my purchase of 3.1