How to hide Fusion as good as possible?

[TimH2209]

Hi,

I have to set up a Win environment for just 2 small appications. Both do work flawlessly in Fusion 3 and WinXP. Now I want to create shortcuts in OSX, so that WinXP launches only on demand in the background and starts the particular application. The user should see not more of Windows than absolutely neccessary

Is that possible? Can I launch a Win XP Desktop Shortcut directly from OSX?

[WoodyZ]

Can I launch a Win XP Desktop Shortcut directly from OSX?

No because OS X does not understand how to handle .lnk files however you can run the Virtual Machine in Unity view and when Windows application are open they should appear on the Dock where you can then ctrl-click and select Options > Keep in Dock. You can then use the VMware Fusion Applications Menu that is one the Apple menu bar to shutdown the Guest while is in Unity view. Then when a User click on the icon in the Dock it will start VMware Fusion without showing the UI and then load te application once the Guest has booted into Unity view.

There are some caveats though. The Guest must be able to boot directly to its Desktop without needing a password and VMware Fusion (at least in 3.1.1 which I'm using) puts up a message box while the Guest is booting in the background and does automatically dismiss itself one the Guest is fully booted to Unity view. The other choice is to suspend the Guest and then the message boxes that are shown are letting you know its restoring from suspended state.

The bottom line is you cannot totally hide all elements of VMware Fusion however I suggest you play around with Unity view and see if you can achieve your goal to an acceptable compromise between what you want and how VMware Fusion works.

[TimH2209]

Thank you very much.

Is it possible to automatically (and unobtrusively) start WinXP when I start OSX? So that I can start and stop Win programs from the OSX bar?

[WoodyZ]

To control Virtual Machines from the Apple menu bar you need to have the Application Menu configured to either Always or Only when Fusion is running. Have a look at Set Up the Applications Menu in the VMware Fusion 3.x Help File or VMware Fusion (menu bar) > Virtual Machine > Settings... > Applications.

If you are going to use Unity and only the one Virtual Machine I'd add the target Virtual Machine Package to the User's Login Items under: Apple menu > System Preferences > System > Accounts > Login Items Note that there are other ways to start a Virtual Machine automatically so if what a different way just say so. As an example if starting the VMware Fusion app the Virtual Machine designated as the Favorite will start automatically as well.

[VMware Fusion (menu bar) > Help > Search > type Designate and then select Perform Actions on Your Virtual...]

Scroll down and close to the bottom it states: Designate a virtual machine to run when you start VMware Fusion (“favorite virtual machine”) Click on the star icon to the right of the virtual machine name in the source list.