Use Fusion 2 registered and Fusion 3 trial?

[Richard_Drysdal]

Hi.

Is it possible to install a Fusion 3 trial while still using the full registered version of Fusion 2 on the same Mac? I want to do a performance comparison to help me decide whether to upgrade to Fusion 3. I don't need any of the new features of Fusion 3, so faster performance is the only thing that would make it worth upgrading.

The guest is 32-bit Windows XP, mostly running Visual Studio 2005. The host is a MacBook Pro 17" (3.1), running Snow Leopard.

What difference (if any) will booting my MacBook Pro into the 64-bit kernel make to the performance of Fusion 3 with XP 32-bit?

Thanks for any help.

[WoodyZ]

Only one version of VMware Fusion can be installed at a time.

If you are happy with Fusion 2 and don't need the additional features then don't bother upgrading as it is not a free upgrade. As to a performance improvement in how your using it I can't say absolutely because Fusion 1.1.1 was the last version of Fusion I use that didn't have performance problems on my system. Fusion 2.x was basically unusable and I had to go back to Parallels to regain the performance lost in upgrading to Fusion 2. Fusion 3 did improve on performance over 2 however not enough to go back to it as my primary virtualization product on my Mac however since the 30 day free trial serial number is available to you you should give it a try and see for yourself if it works better for you then Fusion 2. I'd suggest making full manual backups of your Virtual Machines while shutdown, not suspended, and Fusion closed and do not use Time Machine as it is not 100% reliable under all conditions to backup/restore Virtual Machines. Then if you don't like Fusion 3 you can uninstall it and reinstall Fusion 2. I'd uninstall VMware Tools before uninstalling Fusion 3 and then reinstall the VMware Tools from Fusion 2 and if for any reason you have problems with the Virtual Machines you have the manual backups that you can restore from.

[ajbrehm]

Is it possible to use the VMware tools from Fusion 3 (for Windows 7) with Fusion 2?

I absolutely cannot upgrade to Fusion 3 (because of the headless mode issue, I still cannot imagine how other people can live with all running VMs on the screen at the same time), but did buy the upgrade and want to upgrade to Windows 7.

[WoodyZ]

Is it possible to use the VMware tools from Fusion 3 (for Windows 7) with Fusion 2?

I have run Fusion 3 Virtual Machine's under Fusion 2 however not extensively enough to say there are no issues doing so. So you can always make a copy of the Virtual Machine and install the VMware Tools from Fusion 3 and give it a try and see for yourself how it works for you.

I absolutely cannot upgrade to Fusion 3 (because of the headless mode issue, I still cannot imagine how other people can live with all running VMs on the screen at the same time)

Headless Mode was never a supported feature so it is as it is however why can't you just put the Virtual Machine's in a different Space then the one you primarily work in, and then they're not in the way?

[ajbrehm]

+*Headless Mode was never a supported feature so it is as it is however

why can't you just put the Virtual Machine's in a different Space then

the one you primarily work in, and then they're not in the way?*+

I never needed it as a supported feature, only as a possible feature. Whether it is guaranteed to work well doesn't really matter.

If I put the VMs in different spaces they will still occasionally jump to the foreground or interrupt logouts with the question whether I want to shut them down or save them. Obviously I want neither. I want them to keep running if I log out.

Another problem is the sheer number of useless windows that spring to the foreground when I start Fusion. When I start Fusion I want to interact with one or two VMs, never all of them.

The unsupported headless mode was absolutely ideal for working with more than one VM. I don't understand why there is room for many VMs in the VM list but no mechanism any more to work with so many VMs.