Terrible Startup Performance After Upgrading to 2.0.1

[pgflmac]

I just upgraded from V1.1.2 to V.2.0.1 and the boot of XP is very, very slow (maybe five minutes). The startup seems "hung" for very long time (over 3 mins) in a screen called 'Loading your personal settings...".

I followed the upgrade instructions very carefully.

This same VM started so fast under V1.1.2 that I don't even remember seeing that screen.

Anybody have any ideas on how to improve performance or analyze what is causing this slow start?

[pgflmac]

I looked around the discussion board and saw some discussion of de-installing VMWare tools to improve XP performance and indeed XP boots fast after I de-install. But everytime it boots I get a new hardware found dialog box. It is not clear to me what exactly is "found" but XP seems to be looking for a hardware driver. I sure wish I knew what was going on. Any help?

[jamesdmc]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to help as I'm in the same boat as you. And like you, I'm looking for a solution to this problem (downgrade back to 1.1.x?) I have two macs:

-refurbed Mac Pro, 2.8GHz octo-core, 10 GB RAM, 640 GB WD boot drive, 3x750 GB Samsung Spintpoint F1's; 30" ACD

-24" Aluminum iMac, 4 GB RAM, 750 GB hard drive

Upgrading to 2.0 on the Mac Pro hasn't caused this problem. On the iMac, we now launch Fusion, then walk away. There's time to do other stuff before the VM will finish booting up. It gets stuck on the same screen as yours. I'll keep an eye on this thread for some suggestions.

For the record, on the iMac, I only have one VM and its running XP home SP3. The VM is shared between me and my wife.

On the Mac Pro, I'm the only user, so the VMs are not shared. I have two VM's on this machine: XP home SP3; and Vista Home Premium SP1

James

By the way, does anyone know the proper way to downgrade from version 2.0 to version 1.1.3? I actually tried this a few weeks ago, but when I relaunched, I was still at 2.0; still slow as hell.

[pgflmac]

jamesdmc, did you try de-installing VMWare tools? It did made boot times much faster, but of course, VMWare is hard to use without them installed. I am using XP SP2.

[Technogeezer]

Try the following and see if any changes occur:

Shut down the VM

Check the VM's settings and make sure ALL of the following are turned OFF/ or unchecked:

Printers (uncheck "Enabled" box)

Sharing: Uncheck all Mirrored Folders, the "Share folders on your Mac" box, the "Allow your Mac to open applications in the virtual machine" box, and the "Allow the virtual machine to open applications on your Mac".

In the Virtual Machine Library, right click on the VM and choose "Show in Finder". Close down Fusion and then, In the FInder window that was opened, save away a copy of this bundle somewhere else (good practice whenever you're going to mess around with the VM manually). Now, right click on the VM and choose "Show Package Contents". If there is an Applications folder in the VM's package, drag it (and only it) to the trash.

Now start up Fusion and your VM and see if there's any difference.

[pgflmac]

Followed these suggestions and deleted an applications folder but no change. It still takes minutes for XP to boot. Other ideas?

[WoodyZ]

FWIW On a clean built MacBook Pro and whether using a Fusion 1.x upgraded Virtual Machine or a clean built Fusion 2 Virtual Machine and no matter what I tried performance was so poor compared to Fusion 1.x I had no choice but to upgrade back to Fusion 1.x! While not in the majority users nonetheless for me as well as many many others the only real choice was to go back to Fusion 1.x until VMware gets everything that's wrong with Fusion 2 fixed. You may find its the better choice for you as well.

[whak]

I upgraded to Fusion 2.0.1 from Parallels and noticed that Fusion was slow to boot as a virtual machine. I know that McAfee slows things down because you really have to wait for it to start but there was also slowness before that. I took a copy of the Virtual Machine and ran Eraser (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/7982) on it. What it does is write binary zeroes over "deleted" files. It made a very big difference, but then I wasn't waiting 5 minutes, more like a couple. (Eraser is freeware and has some issues around it. Used to be the only way to reduce the size of a MS Virtual PC.) Have a read and try it on a copy. Might help. Did for my installation.

[pgflmac]

I will try eraser. The odd thing is that with VMWare tools un-installed the boot time is acceptable. I have not directly timed it against VMware 1.x but VMWare w/o VM Tools is a lot faster than with VMWare Tools. The "Loading your personal settings..."screen goes in few seconds vs a few minutes. Have you tried deinstalling VMWare tools to see if that makes things faster. I notice in the logs there are lots and lots of messages flinging by until it gets into this part of the boot then about two minutes goes by with no messages in the log.

[whak]

I haven't tried un-installing Vmware. I only tried Eraser because I felt

there might be some loose files around that weren't properly removed. I'm

not sure if "loose" is the right word, but I was surprised how fast McAfee

appear to load after I did that. Good luck.

From: pgflmac <communities-emailer@vmware.com>

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:37:53 -0800

To: <whakes1@mac.com>

Subject: New message: "Terrible Startup Performance After

Upgrading to 2.0.1"

,

A new message was posted in the thread "Terrible Startup Performance After

Upgrading to 2.0.1":

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1141545#1141545

Author : pgflmac

Profile : http://communities.vmware.com/people/pgflmac

Message: