I'm About to Purchase Fusion & Have Basic Questions...Please Help!

[Spring_Lake_Bob]

Hello:

I'm about to purchase Fusion for my Macbook Pro to run Microsoft Office 2007 and Dragon Naturally Speaking, two Windows-only programs. I have three questions that I didn't find the answers to on the VM Ware site or discussion forums:

1) Is there a particular version of Windows XP that I should install? I know it needs to be a "full" version, but don't know if one version of XP (Home/Professional) works best with Fusion & these programs.

2) Do I need to have Service Pack 2 installed on the Windows XP program?

3) Will I need to run an anti-virus program within the Windows partition on my Mac? (I'm NOT installing Internet Explorer!)

Sorry if these are elementary questions...I've never attempted something like this before. Thanks for your assistance!

[Harliv]

For what you are doing either the Home version of the Professional version of XP should be fine. As far as SP2, it is not required but it is recommended to have your OS updated with all of the security updates.

You should run a virus program in the Windows partition. By not using IE you are reducing your risk but there is still the posibility of you getting a virus within the VM. If you do not need network access in the Windows VM you can also disable that which will also decrease the need for virus programs.

[Spring_Lake_Bob]

Thank you!

[admin]

Hey, Bob. Other folks on this forum have recently discovered a difference between XP Home and XP Professional that impacted their decision: Microsoft restricts Home so that it only takes advantage of one CPU core at a time, even if the hardware contains two.

If you'd like to have the option of an XP virtual machine that can take advantage of both cores of your Mac at the same time, you'll want to buy XP Professional.

I strongly agree with Harliv's advice above.

[Linh_My]

Unless you have 4 or more cores, I wouldn't suggest setting both cores to the VM. I find that things work better for me if I leave at least one core dedicated to the host computer/OS

[Spring_Lake_Bob]

Good...thanks.

[rsa911]

Bob

Office 2007 requires XP SP2, so SP2 is not an option, it's mandatory...

note: if you purchase a new XP license it will come with SP2 slipstreamed in the main CD, so out of the box you'll be running SP2 ...

[laureleiwb]

I am also about to do the same-

and have an extension to this question:

I have Windows Home SP2b-

does it support "b" or not- as I don't see it listed I didn't know if this upgrade to my Windows would be a problem on Fusion...

Thanks,

Laurelei

[SMB1]

Since SP2b is just a couple of fixes added to what SP2 was yes you'll be fine with that version. The extra fixes in the 'b' version were available through Windows Update so once you would get all your patches from there you'd be running the same version of everything, SP2b or not 2b.

[laureleiwb]

Thanks-

loved the 2b or not 2b...

funny stuff

[Quigley]

I have purchased Fusion for my new MacPro laptop and have successfully loaded (and easily I might add) WinXP w/P2. I have loaded a Mac copy of Microsoft Office with no problem and recently purchased a Windows copy of Office but can't install it. The D drive recognizes the install disc and I can open it. If I try to open the installer I get the hourglass for a minute and then it disappears with nothing happening. I have played with the settings around the CD drive (general and specific) but that doesn't help.

Any other suggestions? I need a copy of Office in both the Win side and the Mac side for what I want to do. Any help is appreciated. When I talk to the Mac people, most have only done this with Parallels.

[marcelairmail]

Since this is dated 9/11 it may have been resolved. Nevertheless... could it have something to do with firewall settings? Perhaps you also loaded a virus protection program on the VM that prevents the program from loading.....

I have loaded Office successfully on the VM myself and I'm pretty sure I disabled (in my case) Norton to make that happen.

Hope this helps.

M.