MacFUSE for Dummies

[Fifer]

When I installed Fusion 2.0.5, I went with the flow and installed MacFUSE along the way since it was offered. I have tried to get a clear idea as to what it's for, but I can't say I'm really any the wiser. It seems to be very technical and possibly not for the likes of me.

My set up is fairly simple here. I have this machine partitioned with just the Macintosh HD and Windows XP in a Boot Camp partition. This is so that my wife can use Windows XP for work associated stuff.

What use could we put MacFUSE to with our set up, just out of interest? I know I can uninstall it and remove the MacFUSE pref pane, but I'm genuinely curious about it.

[asatoran]

I'm have MacFUSE because I'm using NTFS-3G. NTFS-3G allows me to read and write to NTFS drives. OSX only allows you to read NTFS drives. So my external USB hard drives I can format as NTFS and use with my Mac or PC and not have the 4GB limit of FAT32. (I transfer a number of video files, as well as VMs, which are larger than 4GB.)

What other uses MacFUSE is for, I'm not sure. I just "need" NTFS-3G.

[admin]

For normal virtual machines, the virtual disk is a file in OS X's filesystem (as opposed to a different partition for Boot Camp virtual machines). MacFUSE lets us mount a virtual disk in OS X, just like you can mount a .dmg or an .iso.

[Fifer]

Thanks for your reply.

I think, from your description of why you use it, that we don't have any use for MacFUSE. We wouldn't be transferring files larger than 4GB for instance. In fact neither of us are at all sure about transferring any files from the Mac partition to the Windows partition.

[Fifer]

Thanks, etung.

I'm not sure we would need to mount a virtual disk. Would that be to drag files between partitions?

[admin]

I'm not sure we would need to mount a virtual disk. Would that be to drag files between partitions?

This is mostly so you can get at your files when the virtual machine isn't running. Since you're using a Boot Camp partition, you don't need MacFUSE since you can already get at your files.

[Fifer]

Thank you, that settles it for sure. I'll just uninstall it and remoce the pref pane.

We aren't heavy duty users of the Windows environment anyway, although it is of great use to my wife now and then.

[suleyman]

I'm not sure we would need to mount a virtual disk. Would that be to drag files between partitions?This is mostly so you can get at your files when the virtual machine isn't running. Since you're using a Boot Camp partition, you don't need MacFUSE since you can already get at your files.

etung can you please explain or point to a reference on how to do this? I often turn on my WinXP VM just to get to the files (it is not on a Boot Camp Partition). The macFuse preference panel does not have any interesting options and I don't see any other GUI to do this.

Thanks

[admin]

etung can you please explain or point to a reference on how to do this? I often turn on my WinXP VM just to get to the files (it is not on a Boot Camp Partition).

I'm sure it's somewhere in the documentation, but I don't have 2.0.5 installed right now to check. With the virtual machine shut down (suspended doesn't count), ctrl-click on the virtual machine in the Finder and select Open With > VMDKMounter

[suleyman]

etung can you please explain or point to a reference on how to do this? I often turn on my WinXP VM just to get to the files (it is not on a Boot Camp Partition).I'm sure it's somewhere in the documentation, but I don't have 2.0.5 installed right now to check. With the virtual machine shut down (suspended doesn't count), ctrl-click on the virtual machine in the Finder and select Open With > VMDKMounter

Great pointer thank you.