Does anyone have any experience running inventor via vmware? I am awaiting my MBP 2.2 and wondering if I should use vmware via a boot camp partition or whether it will be fine as a "normal" vmware system.
TIA
Inventor is a 3D CAD program, and this is where the bootcamp vs normal VM may be important - if Fusion's 3D support is not sufficient, you have the option to boot natively. I haven't tried Inventor, so I don't know.
I am not personally run inventor, but as far as Bootcamp vs a "normal" VM you wont see any differences. The advantage over going with Bootcamp is you have the option to boot natively into the system if you need additional performance for something which even if you don't require now you might want further down the road. Running as a "normal" VM gives you the option to easily move the VM to another system or simply make copies of the entire VM as backups.
Inventor is a 3D CAD program, and this is where the bootcamp vs normal VM may be important - if Fusion's 3D support is not sufficient, you have the option to boot natively. I haven't tried Inventor, so I don't know.
It seems that it won't run at all, the 3d rendering plane remains black :'(.
Also I just found out that it somehow screws up your license.. If someone else tries this and gets license error 0.1.0011 have a look at http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=424890
and more specificly:
Reply From: luis_supercad
Date: May/04/07 - 13:49 (GMT)
Reply
Re: license patch for status 0.1.0011 does not work
Yo se como arreglar ese error, pero no se mucho ingles.
Lo primero que tienen que hacer es eliminar el archivo B3474000.DAT o similar, ubicado en C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Datos de programa\Autodesk\Software Licenses
y luego correr el programa de nuevo. Eso es todo. ya esta Listo.
ya no mas loops, ya no mas license error 0.1.0011.
In English: I know how you fix this error, but my english is very bad.
First: delete the file B3474000.DAT o similar in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Program Data\Autodesk\Software Licenses, Later run the 3ds max again.
introduce you password and activation. The program run perfect!!
No more loop the activation. no more license status error 0.1.0011
Bye
Happy to say, things have changed since your post.
I'm running Autodesk Inventor 2011 virtualized under VMWare 3.1.2 and it's pretty fine. This combination is not officially supported (by Autodesk) but the only major glitch is to tick off "software graphics" from AI options. That makes the software draw with DirectX9, which is at least decent.
Naturally, performance is not the same as with BootCamp, but it's adequate for my needs. For now.
The only real bummer was that 3DConnexion SpaceExplorer "3D mouse" goes to a crawl when used in connection with AI2011, under VMWare 3.1.2. It works, technically, but response times are in the magnitude of seconds. If VMWare is serious about supporting Autodesk tools, I would strongly suggest looking at this hardware issue as well. It's something either with VMWare, with Autodesk or - most likely - the 3DConnexion AI2011 "driver" that is in between.
I have a blog post with more details <a href="http://openduck.blogspot.com/2011/02/autodesk-inventor-2010-under-vmware.html">here</a>.