Fusion 4.1.0 is definitely slower

[RCampbell12]

VMWare claims Fusion 4.x is faster.  What I'm seeing is just the opposite.  It's very noticeably slower and it started immediately after upgrading to 4.1 (I went straight from 3.whatever to 4.1).  I'm not sure what other information to offer.  I didn't change the configuration and really don't want to because I had a bunch of trouble with my initial install of Fusion and a technician remotely attached, changed a bunch of settings, and finally fixed the issue.  The problem was, he really didn't know what was causing the issue and what fixed it, so it always left me with the feeling that Fusion (or at least my installation) was fragile and a change to the configuration could make those initial issues crop up again.  And VMWare didn't recommend any config changes that I'm aware of in order to run version 4 optimally, so therefore I left it the same.

Is anyone else seeing slower performance?  What can I do to improve performance?  What other info can I offer besides machine specs which are Nov. 2009 17" MBP, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HD, and fastest processor at the time (3.06 or something).

[Bingyingy]

Yeah, I'm using a 2009 MBP too with 8GB Ram, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz and since upgrading the vmware fusion 4 it's started to crawl when running Windows 7... Its like all my Disk I/O has gone through the floor..

[RCampbell12]

You, too, huh?  Well, it doesn't look like I'll be getting answers or suggestions here and therefore we'll both be dealing with slow VMs.  I just haven't had much success getting responses here.  I'd like to get help through the community before moving on to tech support, but I guess I'll have to open a ticket on this.  Perhaps some settings can be adjusted, without causing the instability I saw when I first started using Fusion (it was version 3 at the time).  I hope so.  I decided to use the MBP for another 6 - 12 months, but after that I'll be going back to a standard Windows laptop to avoid using a VM altogether.

[Sir_W]

Same problem here on a MacBoo Pro i7 with 8GB of RAM with Lion 10.7.3. Guest is Windows 7 x64 with 2GB of virtual memory. I've disabled the AV (McAfee) in Windows but the host is still very sluggish even with the VM just sitting there. No CPU usage, but high I/O activity.

[wila]

Hello,

If you have shared folders between your guest and your host and are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 as guest then please have a look at the following knowledgebase article.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2011360

PS: I never saw a 100% dock, but adding the extra line to the vmx file, did make a huge difference for me.

As another note: I suggest to make a copy of the vmx file before you edit it, just in case that you mistype something.

Hope this helps,

--

Wil

[ColoradoMarmot]

Disable System Restore in the guest.

[Sir_W]

I've disabled the System Restore in guest and also followed the instruction in the KB article above. There has definitely been an improvement, but the disk I/O is still consistenly high on host. I tend not to blame vmware only too much on this issue, since I've noticed that Lion's virtual memory management is still far from being perfect, even under 10.7.3. Still, it's barely usable, unless I only have Fusion open, and no other running applications on host. Then again, is that really better than Bootcamp?

[ColoradoMarmot]

That triggered a thought - I've seen Finder run away a lot on 10.7 where the system was upgraded or migrated.  Clean installs don't seem to have the issue.