To the VM Ware Community:
I promised several callers and e-mailers that when we got this situation resolved, I would post information for the community.
Well, the final result is 60 hours of working with Apple, HP, VMWare and technical support including two great people from Nerds On Site, one a MAC expert and another Windows.
If you need MAC support call the man to talk with is James Marino, Nerds On Site, , phone 646-873-7695. James held our hands during 45 of the more than 60 hours involved with the migration and configuration. He was patient, knowlegable and worked through or located all of the MAC issues to expedite the process as much as possible. He knows Fusion and Parallels. He is based in New York. Please keep in mind the time difference. If you send him an e-mail he responds. He has a young family so please be considerate.
If you need Windows, then talk with "Yanni." His phone is 877-696-3737. E-mail is . Yanni is a straight talker, right to the point. He and James share this trait. When they are focused on a solution let them go.
Please tell both of them that you were referred by Cynthia Fischer from Cruise Planners of Highlands Ranch and her husband Jeff Fischer.
My conclusion is that we were probably jinxed from the start. However, James Marino, the Nerd's MAC expert, hung in there and worked with us until the bitter end; including but not limited to assisting in migrating programs and documents back to the XP Professional computer. His support went way beyond any technical support from VM Ware, Apple or HP. The items that I got from the VM Ware community allowed us to work through the systems. We discovered several items.:
1. If Apple tech support had not insisted we activate and run Boot Camp we would have saved between 6 and 8 hours.
2. Apple tech support insisted we needed Bonjour to run, we did not.
3. Apple tech support and store personnel insisted repeatedly said they could not support VM Ware even when they sell it on their web site and the VM Ware server.
4. If MAC and Apple are interested in winning Windows customers, they do need to make sure they get iWorks on a computer. When we discussed this with the Apple store (we had given them a detailed hit list) they shrugged their shoulders. It would have speeded up the process and simplified our lives. It may have added some interactive functions that we had requested between MAC and Windows. Several community members have expressed surprise we did not have this on the system.
5. We have received 3 e-mails of web site pages on the www.vmware.com site. This has been the sum of of technical support after using bypasses to talk with some of their people and being called a "dumb joe" by one person in India. Lack of technical support after 6 p.m. or a telephone number has hindered our expediting this process. There was a call from a "VM Manager" whose name I did not catch who said he had been monitoring this forum. He promised tech support within 24 hours. No such luck. If it was a bad joke, hope you had lots of laughs.
6. The install of XP Pro went quicker than the upgrades to MAC. However, it still took more than 8 hours to bring everything current from the OEM copy of Windows and Apple's web site. One hour was spent getting "program" updates for iPhone.
7. Safari was no faster than Internet Explorer. We had upgraded to 4 GIG RAM to make sure XP Professional had all the room it needed. On the Apple side it acted like 1 GIG.
8. Maintaining multiple windows was never sustainable so much for drag and drop into Expose and Space. They continued from day one going into one window.
9. We got a defective mouse and keyboard and the store was willing to exchange at no cost.
10. We got told that we had 30 days to return and get a full refund with no penalty, our receipt says Feb. 23. We are gone. It is going back. The inability to utilize the keyboard, get information from Apple tech support ( can you tell me what the function keys do? I'll send you an e-mail. Hell is freezing over.) We run an 18 hour operation out of our home. Time, e-mail access is essential. Non-access to Outlook from the MAC side helped his this deal. MAC mail is way behind. We never could migrate a calendar over. Bad move Apple.
11. We did learn that migration of MAC to MAC is quick and easy (less than 2 hours). We learned that Windows to MAC is a week out of your life.
12. Is virtualization ready for the marketplace? I don't know. Are we headed for common operating systems? Not yet.
This has been an interesting experience. Very frustrating. Very time consuming. We have lost a substantial amount of income producing time sitting on hold waiting for programs to migrate, asking techs to speak in English and not Tek Speak) and searching for applications and systems that seem to move around.
We can not commend the techs I listed above enough for their assistance and guidance. I can not thank the VM Ware community members who responded with direct e-mails and suggestions and the few die hard MAC users who helped keep the focus. Thank you all many times over.
Jeffrey C. Fischer
MBA's Inc.
Business and Organizational Management Consultants
6876 East Edgewood Way
Highlands Ranch, CO 80130
303-683-9369
