Unity windows show the guest OS background briefly when being dragged..

[rbphilip]

I noticed that (for example) my firefox window would show weird edges and when moved quickly enough would briefly show the Windows background behind where the window was, when I grab it and move it.

This also occurs with a Ubuntu guest with FF in unity mode.

This is mildly irritating as it makes it clear that the guest window you're dragging is a Unity window, and it makes the pretty mac display look a little ugly.

I see this a little bit with my quad-core W7 host and a unity window, but it's not quite as dramatic as it is under fusion.

Anyone else see this? Some obvious fix I'm missing?

[WoodyZ]

Unfortunately this seems to be normal and expected as I've had the same result not only on my MacBook Pro as well as the latest fastest iMac and several other machines in between. Sometimes it's extremely noticeable, sometimes barely noticeable and sometimes not noticeable at all. This is one of the primary issues I personally do not like to use Unity view although every now and again I will use Unity view and to avoid seeing a stark contrast between Desktops I generally set both Desktop Wallpapers to use a copy of the same image.

Another reason why I choose not to use Unity view is, it's more resource intensive then running in Single Window view and the least resource intensive is Full Screen view, which is what I normally use when having to work in a Virtual Machine for extended periods of time and I place it in a separate Space and then toggle between my Spaces.

I was very happy when Apple built Spaces into Mac OS X as I had been using Microsoft PowerToys Desktop Manager for some time before Apple decided to incorporate what other *nix distros had and called virtual Desktops.

[rbphilip]

So, do you put a full-screen Fusion window up in one of the "spaces"

virtual windows, or just a windowed version? I've not used "spaces"

yet.. too much else going on to actually learn to use my computer

[WoodyZ]

Depending on what I'm working on sometimes I will assign VMware Fusion to a given Space, as an example Space 2, and then run either Single Window or Full Screen. As an actual working example, when programming I like to be in Full Screen view as this allows me to focus primarily on the task at hand and then with a quick toggle of a couple keys and I'm in a different Space back at my Mac OS X Desktop, do something and then toggle back.

[rbphilip]

Thanks. I'll give that a try. It's probably a better way to do what I

was trying to accomplish in Unity anyway.

[Mikero]

You could also try setting the background in Windows to a generic color like grey, as that tends to be less 'ugly', and performs well (considering less video buffer overhead).

[rbphilip]

Yeah - it's already that way. Using spaces is the way to go, I think...

[WoodyZ]

You could also try setting the background in Windows to a generic color like grey, as that tends to be less 'ugly', and performs well (considering less video buffer overhead).

Conceptually Unity is a nice feature however in practice due to the artifacts of the Guest's Desktop being shown when a Unity window is moved or resized makes this feature unusable. Also as a User I do not want to have to change my Guest's Desktop Wallpaper just to work around this shortcoming in VMware Fusion's Unity feature. What the developers of VMware Fusion should be doing is programming it so when one switches from either Single Window or Full Screen view to Unity view the Guest's Desktop should automatically become transparent as this is the only way that I can think of that would reduce artifacts to a degree that would be barely noticeable if at all and certainly better than having to either match the Desktop Wallpaper between Host and Guest or set the Guest's Desktop Wallpaper to a neutral color. Of course then when switching out of Unity view the Guest's Desktop should return to the state the User had it configured.

So tell the developers to improve this feature much less the product in general.

[Mikero]

I agree, and you're right.

It's certainly easier said than done, but we're working on it.

[rbphilip]

I do need to say that other than the issue with Unity, I find Fusion

to be an awesome product. I love the freedom of moving VMs between my

big desktop and my MBP when I need to travel for work, as well as the

warm & fuzzy of using my MBP when I travel rather than a (seemingly

constantly) crashing Dell laptop.

The unity issue is minor to me, but I thought it worth mentioning.

[WoodyZ]

It's certainly easier said than done, but we're working on it.

Yes and sometimes it easier done then said.

On a serious note though, I done this type of API Programing under Windows however not on a Mac so I don't know if it's possible under OS X but I'd be surprised if it couldn't be done.

[WoodyZ]

I'm not trying to infer VMware Fusion is not a good product. Every virtualization product on the market today has its pros and cons however there is no doubt that VMware is the industry leader in this area.

I use both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion on my Mac however I only use VMware Products on my Windows and Linux systems.