Telephone support?

[bobfritts]

I need telephone support for the following (glad to pay)

1 Is there a way to print the Fusion help file all at once?

2 Is there a way to make Command-M minimize the VM all the time, not just sometimes?

3 Is there a keyboard shortcut to bring back the VM after it is minimized

4 Why does not Control-Command do anything?

5 Is it better to share my physically connected printer via the network rather than have USB connected/not connected problems? If so how to do it?

6 Is there a SIMPLE way to allow NTFS external USB disk drives to be read/write in OS X?

7 I sometimes get color "sprinkles" onscreen in the VM display. Is this common or a display card issue?

Bob Fritts

bobfritts@cox.net

[jfriesne]

I'll just answer #5, since it's the only one I know... ;^) IMHO it's much better to share the printer over the "network" instead of via USB, since that way both the Mac and the PC side can always print to it at any time. Basically you just need to enable Printer Sharing on the Mac side (from the Print & Fax control panel), and then tell download the Adobe Universal Postscript printer driver to the Windows side (if it doesn't already have a postscript printer driver installed.... you can get it from adobe.com), and tell Windows to use the network printer at your Mac's IP address. There are some more details here:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=679365

Fixed URL (hopefully)

blah!

[admin]

1-3. Not that I know of

4. Where? It should ungrab.

6. Depends on what "simple" means to you. There's no built-in way to do this, but you could try FUSE. This also doesn't have anything to do with Fusion.

7. Never heard of this. Screenshot? Is it only in the guest or is it on the host also?

[bobfritts]

I understand that the NTFS issue is not a Fusion problem, but the only way I can figure to keep a snapshot is to copy it to an external HD. If I use fat32, I am unable to copy the snapshot VM (I think because of the 2 GB file size limit?) So, that is why I want NTFS write capability. I have read of Fuse, but it seems to take a guru to use it.

The color sparkles only show in the VM, and will usually go away with a reboot of Windows XP.

On the Control-Command keyboard shortcut, I assume it is to switch between OS X and the Guest (XP), but I cannot get that combination to do anything.

Thanks

[admin]

I understand that the NTFS issue is not a Fusion

problem, but the only way I can figure to keep a

snapshot is to copy it to an external HD. If I use

fat32, I am unable to copy the snapshot VM (I think

because of the 2 GB file size limit?) So, that is why

I want NTFS write capability.

I'm not sure what you mean by "keep a snapshot" - snapshots are by default put into the vmwarevm bundle that contains all the virtual machine's files. You don't manually manage them. Also, you can create disks that are split into 2GB chunks precisely so they can be used on more limited filesystems such as FAT (look under the Advanced disk options during virtual machine creation) - you can also split a disk after creation. So FAT should be fine. Also, if you don't need to use the external drive with other OSes, you can just use a HFS+ format.

The color sparkles only show in the VM, and will

usually go away with a reboot of Windows XP.

Do they constantly show up, or does something trigger it? What hardware do you have?

On the Control-Command keyboard shortcut, I assume it

is to switch between OS X and the Guest (XP), but I

cannot get that combination to do anything.

It's only really necessary when you don't have Tools installed - without Tools, the mouse is normally trapped in the guest because we have no way of telling when it hits the edge. By pressing the shortcut, Fusion knows to direct mouse movement to the host again. This isn't necessary with Tools installed since with their help, Fusion knows when you move the mouse out of the guest.

[admin · Accepted solution]

2 Is there a way to make Command-M minimize the VM all the time, not just sometimes?

3 Is there a keyboard shortcut to bring back the VM after it is minimized

4 Why does not Control-Command do anything?

If you're using Unity mode, then all host (Mac) keyboard shortcuts like command-M should work, and control-command doesn't do anything, because it doesn't need to. If you're not using Unity mode (you're in either Wndowed or Full Screen views), then the keyboard "belongs" to either the VM or the Mac, but not both -- in our documentation, we say the VM "grabs" the keyboard. At this point, normally host OS keystrokes are not honored, and all keyboard input goes only to the VM (though you can change this behavior in Fusion's Preferences). When the VM has the input grabbed, you can press control-command to ungrab, and after you ungrab, input goes to the host OS. So pressing and releasing control-command, then pressing command-h, should hide the Fusion app. Or pressing and releasing control-command, then pressing command-m, should minimize the VM window.

5 Is it better to share my physically connected printer via the network rather than have USB connected/not connected problems? If so how to do it?

There are advantages to each method; IMHO the network sharing way is better, because if you do it the USB way, the host (Mac) OS loses access to the printer, and you have to remember to kick it back and forth. If the host OS always owns it, and shares it, then they both can always use it. On the other hand, it's a little harder to set up, as you've noticed, and the host OS drivers may not be able to use all features of all printers. To set up sharing, use the Sharing panel in your Mac's System Preferences, then install Apple's Bonjour for Windows utility in the VM, and you should be able to find and set up the shared printer.

6 Is there a SIMPLE way to allow NTFS external USB disk drives to be read/write in OS X?

Not that I know of.

7 I sometimes get color "sprinkles" onscreen in the VM display. Is this common or a display card issue?

I don't think this is common. Is there any specific time you always see this, or a set of steps that makes it happen?

[bobfritts]

I have a brand new IiMac 24 Intel core 2 duo with 2GB Ram, Windows XP Pro in the guest. What I am trying to do is keep forever the entire folder containing the VM so that if the HD fails, I can get back up and running easily. So my idea is to copy off the internal HD to an external HD, then rename the folder. If this works, then I can keep several copies of the VM over time as I add software, etc. Since Fusion does not yet allow multiple snapshots, and even when it does, they are on the MAC HD, I think a further backup is necessary. If I could copy the 12GB file to a FAT32 USB HD, that would be OK. Or, if I knew how to format a HFS+ drive that would be OK

too

I will try to pin down the "color sparkles" issue in more detail and ask a specific question about it.

Many of us will come here since this may be our first time with a MAC. I got mine because I could run both OS's. Therefore there will be a lot of plain MAC questions.

Thanks

[admin]

Since you just want to back up your virtual machine (yes, it is as easy as copying over the files for normal VMs), just be sure to choose the "Split disk into 2GB files" when creating the virtual machine. This is best for portability.

Formatting a drive HFS+ can be done with Disk Utiility - be warned that formatting a disk loses all the data on it. If you only plan to use the drive on your Mac, though, HFS+ is probably a better choice than NTFS or FAT.