Just switched from Parallels 3.0 -- a bit of bumpy ride

[scotrob11]

Just switched from parallels 3.0 to fusion using the beta conversion utility. It seemed to work well. However, I have a few issues so perhaps you can help. I have looked around quite a bit on this site. BTW, I have a new imac 24inch with 2.4 gig processor, 750gigs of disk space and 4gigs of ram. My VM has 2gigs allocated to it. Also NAT is being used.

1) it looks like the conversion program allocated about 30 gigs for my VM. I guess this is okay for now, but can I increase this down the road?

2) in parallels, they automatically map my mac's documents folder and all subfolders to the Windows my documents directory. This is a really nice feature. I would like to be able to have one of my Mac directories fully accessible in Windows. I'm having a little luck, but cannot get it to completely work. Here's what I have done:

- in mac sharing preferences I added the mac 'documents' and 'public folder'. For users I have users, everyone and even added a new name. I gave all of the users read/write access for now. For both folders I set options as 'smb'. However, the only user that is show in the 'on' box under 'smb' is the admin user account for the computer. There doesn't seem to be a way to add additional ones.

- I'm able to see these folders in the my VM machine under network neighborhood. I can also read and write files. I can also create a subdirectory at the main folder level. However, I cannot write files in any subdirectory. So it looks like while I can gain access at the main directory level, I cannot write files for any subdirectories. In mac sharing, there doesn't seem to be an option to grant access to any subdirectory. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

- am I even doing things correctly? The ideal situation would be able to share my mac's document folder with windows and have the folder always accessible to windows. What's the best way to do this?

3) I was running VMware for a few hours and for some reason I lost the internet connection. It was working fine on the mac, but not in the VM. I tried restarting the VM but this didn't work. the only thing that worked was restarting the mac AND the VM. Any ideas what happened and what I can do in the future without restarting my machine.

4) Windows apps (mostly outlook) have locked a few times today and I had to restart them. This has not happened even once in parallels and I was using it for a full week. Any ideas? Could this have something to do with converting from parallels? Would I have been better off starting from scratch?

5) I have a two monitor setup. I can use the second monitor in single window mode, but in Unity mode I cannot use the 2nd monitor. Is there a setting I can try to get it to work -- not a big deal and parallels doesn't allow me to use the other monitor either.

Thanks!

- scot

[admin]

Welcome to Fusion!

1) it looks like the conversion program allocated about 30 gigs for my VM. I guess this is okay for now, but can I increase this down the road?

I believe Importer (I assume you used this, since Converter is not in beta) creates a disk of the same size as the source. If you need to increase it later, you can do so via something like .

- I'm able to see these folders in the my VM machine under network neighborhood. I can also read and write files. I can also create a subdirectory at the main folder level. However, I cannot write files in any subdirectory. So it looks like while I can gain access at the main directory level, I cannot write files for any subdirectories. In mac sharing, there doesn't seem to be an option to grant access to any subdirectory. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

You should check the permissions on 'documents' and 'public folder' in OS X - they probably need to be set to allow everyone read/write access.

- am I even doing things correctly? The ideal situation would be able to share my mac's document folder with windows and have the folder always accessible to windows. What's the best way to do this?

It sounds like you're setting up a network share from OS X and connecting to it from the guest. Another option is to use Fusion's Shared Folders, which you can set up under Settings. One UI gotcha is that you have to enable both the overall shared folder setting for the virtual machine as well as specific shared folders.

3) I was running VMware for a few hours and for some reason I lost the internet connection. It was working fine on the mac, but not in the VM. I tried restarting the VM but this didn't work. the only thing that worked was restarting the mac AND the VM. Any ideas what happened and what I can do in the future without restarting my machine.

What sort of network connection does your iMac have (e.g. wired ethernet, wireless, etc.)?

In addition to restarting the guest (or just telling the guest to poke at the network), one thing to try in the future is poking Fusion's network scripts with

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/boot.sh --restart

4) Windows apps (mostly outlook) have locked a few times today and I had to restart them. This has not happened even once in parallels and I was using it for a full week. Any ideas? Could this have something to do with converting from parallels? Would I have been better off starting from scratch?

Starting from scratch is probably going to give better results, but I don't know that it would help for certain. If possible, it may be useful to know why the Windows apps are locking up - are they taking up all the CPU, is the network being bad, is the disk not responding, etc.

5) I have a two monitor setup. I can use the second monitor in single window mode, but in Unity mode I cannot use the 2nd monitor.

This is a known issue and documented in the release notes. The developers are aware the people would like this functionality, but VMware policy is to not comment on unannounced features, products, timelines, etc. so I can't say more.

[scotrob11]

etung, thanks! A few things:

1) I was able to set the permissions for the subfolders, so now I'm able to write files in subfolders -- great. One issue I have is that I set ther permissions for 'everyone'. Can this be a security issue? wouldn't it be better to set the permissions for read/write for the specific VM user? If so, how would I do that?

2) I do have sharedfolders enabled under 'settings' but I still don't understand what this means or how it works (and for that matter how it's different than just sharing folders via the network). Any clarification would be appreciated. I'm assuming that VMware has set up a shared folder that is accessible in both finder and in Windows Explorer. I'm not sure where this is.

3) My imac ethernet connection is via a direct ethernet cable/router (not wifi). It's very strange that my connection was still fine in the mac, but not the VM. Is this a known issue?

[admin]

1) I was able to set the permissions for the subfolders, so now I'm able to write files in subfolders -- great. One issue I have is that I set ther permissions for 'everyone'. Can this be a security issue? wouldn't it be better to set the permissions for read/write for the specific VM user? If so, how would I do that?

Yes, it could be a security problem. I'm not sure if it's possible or easy to set a finer level of permissions with network shares.

2) I do have sharedfolders enabled under 'settings' but I still don't understand what this means or how it works (and for that matter how it's different than just sharing folders via the network). Any clarification would be appreciated. I'm assuming that VMware has set up a shared folder that is accessible in both finder and in Windows Explorer. I'm not sure where this is.

There are a number of differences. The big one is that VMware Shared Folders don't go over the network - this allows you to use them even without network, or with a guest you don't want to give network to. It also lets you not have to open ports on the host. It also means you don't have to give write permissions to everyone. The downside is that currently shared folders aren't as robust as we'd like, and there are some known problems with them.

Shared folders normally show up in
.host\Shared Folders\

3) My imac ethernet connection is via a direct ethernet cable/router (not wifi). It's very strange that my connection was still fine in the mac, but not the VM. Is this a known issue?

I don't think so, I'm just trying to gather data.