What do you use Fusion for?

[M_Computer]

Hey all, I just wanted to do a quick survey to find out what you guys and girls use Fusion for, apart from running guest operating systems. What has the experience been like?

Cheers

Alex Mills

[bgertzfield]

Myself, I'm very happy running Fusion to play games that don't exist on the Mac, like Bookworm Adventures, Magic: the Gathering Online, etc.

I also use it to upgrade the firmware on my cell phone, my GPS, and other various devices I have lying around that don't have drivers for the Mac.

[Speedbird]

For the past 7 years I had used nothing more than Linux as my primary (and usually only) desktop, I've been a computer programmer and web app developer since I got out of college, recently I was "converted" (a.k.a. turned into a Mac user) and couldn't be happier, however I lost the flexibility AND EASE of setup and run my application development tools and servers (Python, Zope, MySQL, Postgres and several others), though they can run on the Mac, it is still a little bit cumbersome to get it to work right, Fusion glues everything together for me, my VM runs CentOS 4.4 flawlessly on my MacBook, and SILENTLY also, something I cannot say on running Parallels, for example, which boosts up my fan to 6000 RPM. So there you have it

PS - I do not (or intend to) run Windows myself, it'll be like adding a green plush wheel cover to a Lexus.

\-- sb

[pjv]

i bought my first mac in 1984 and i was a mac-only geek for a long time. then i got a job that required me to run windows because of various apps that do not exist for mac os, and due to the hassle of trying to integrate a dual digital life, i eventually succumbed to becoming a pc-only geek and lived that servitude to an inferior OS for a long time.

a couple years ago, i got hipped to vmware and built a new box to run linux and virtualized my work PC to run as a guest. linux was better than windows, but i still pined for a mac.

when i first heard about parallels, i started to get a little excited, but by then i had so much time invested in vmware that i didn't do anything about it, assuming that vmware would jump on the bandwagon soon enough.

when i heard about fusion, i knew that my PC days were OVER. and so it is. i am now running my crummy little win2k work PC in a fusion vm on my mac and i am SO happy to finally be back on a mac that i have actually danced around in my office more than once.

i'm even happy enough that looking at the PC running inside a window on my mac (where it belongs) actually makes me smile rather than cringe.

[manuel_wenger]

There's a (limited) application set that I still need Windows for:

\- Jeppesen Flitestar

\- Sony Aibo Entertainment Player

\- Netobjects Fusion

\- SonyEricsson Phone Update Service

\- VMware Virtual Center / Virtual Infrastructure Client

If it weren't for these 5 apps, my Mac would be Windows-free. But I don't think they'll be all replaceable in the future, therefore Fusion is exactly what I need

[blackpuma]

After many years of getting my hind-end roasted by Windows, I'm a die-hard "one VM per use" freak now. Yes, it chews up disk space at an astonishing rate, but I'm willing to buy disk space and back it up regularly in exchange for my sanity.

I have external Firewire hard drives that contain my VMs. A quick survey:

\* DHCP server on minimalistic Centos 4 (Linux).

\* Master DNS server on minimalistic Centos 4 (Linux).

\* Internal slave DNS server on minimalistic Centos 4 (Linux).

\* Linguistics reserach software on Windows 2000.

\* 4 x Windows guests for different software development projects (Win32 and .NET development).

\* Road trip software on Windows 98.

\* 2 x wiki servers on minimalistic Centos 4 (Linux).

\* Master Subversion server on minimalistic Centos 4 (Linux).

\* Accounting software on Windows 2000.

I also have a whole slew of old VMs that have been archived onto DVD-R.

[M_Computer]

To answer my own question and to join the list.

I mainly use Fusion for running Win XP Pro so I can use my expensive software that at the moment I cant afford to upgrade to and use devices that don't have drivers for Mac.

Adobe Photoshop CS (Saving up for CS3)

Windows Media Player 11 for my Toshiba Gigabeat S30

Fusion has also given me the chance to finally play with Linux and try new operating systems.

Can I get a round of applause for the Fusion developers!!!!

Cheers

Alex

[admin]

At work, Fusion lets me use the occasional Windows-specific program - while there are alternatives, it's much less hassle this way. On my laptop, I also use it to keep work files (e.g. VPN) separate/isolated from personal stuff.

At home, Fusion lets me tap free software without having to dedicate a computer or partition to it - for example, I currently need a spreadsheet, so I'll create a Linux VM, keep it around for a couple weeks, and when I'm done save the data and trash the VM.

[movielad]

I use mine to watch DRM protected Windows Media files for services such as Channel 4's 4oD or Sky's (part of the Rupert Murdoch empire) Anytime. The new beta 3 handles it really well.

M.

[SillyRegistrati]

Fusion allow me to keep a single computer for both personal life and work stuff. Two major usages:

1- Run multimedia related PC stuff that does not run on Mac, flash Firmware and so on.

2- Work PC with VI3 Client, Outlook, Visio, Access and more important those Windows only VPN clients my customers use... I also need IE 6+ for a lot of business applications (web frontend, but IE only...).

Side usage: product evaluation / testing.

It's been running fine so far, every single application runs OK (but being a long time ESX user, and Fusion being a VMware product, I had no doubt about that).

I would like some more avanced features in Fusion (e.g. multiple snapshots). But so far, happy camper.

Oh, and it's stable. Never got a kernel panic nor a Fusion crash (unlike some competitor's product not even beta which I unistall after a grey scrren of death).

[chuwy]

As the 3d/direct X abilities and support increases in fusion I will be using it more and more solely as a way to play all my PC games without having to use Bootcamp.

[spfthink]

I have to produce business & systems design diagrams in Visio and Enterprise Architect. I also use MS Access heavily for data analysis. I have MS Office 2007 Pro an Visio 2007 running under Beta 3. The VM machine gets hammered during the day - then it has a rest at night when I switch back to using OSX. Fusion works - very well. No probs.

[bcotton]

I'm a Linux sysadmin at a pre-eminent Big Ten university (I wonder if they'll pay me extra to say that on a regular basis?), but I sometimes have to do Windows work. I use Fusion to run a WinXP VM so that I can test SMS pushes, make changes to Active Directory and Group Policy settings, and use MS Access.

[JMartin]

I use fusion for Microstation (It needs directx 8 at least), and autocad. I have installed windows xp x64 to take advantage of my Core 2 Duo.

The computer is a Macbook Pro and the strange thing is it becomes less hot running windows through fusion than native, with similar performance and fan speed (but graphics... )

[rcardona2k]

As a developer my primary apps are Visual Studio 2005 for .NET, C/C++/C# development. I've tried the Mono tools on OS X but they don't compare to a well-integrated, tested and supported environment as Visual Studio.

Along with development, there are a slew of other Windows-only tools that I run. I work with VMs on a lot of platforms so having access to the rest of VMware's tools is also a plus.

Similarly for Linux, I have a majority of FOSS compiled on OS X but sometimes I need to know exactly where/how things are configured in Linux so I keep a "workhorse" Linux VM (OpenSuSE) around for that.

[Linh_My]

I have two homes about 10,000 miles apart. Putting a specific app and associated data into its own VM allows me both to easily back up to DVD. It also allows me to move my work 10,000 miles on DVDs. It also becomes irrelevant what the base OS is. The Guest OS can also be optimised specifficaly for the app.

[jocelyng]

I use it to work from home. I made a clone of my work environment in a Fusion VM, popped it on my home machine (a mac), and now I have my complete work environment (outlook profile, bookmarks, documents, etc,) that I need to be productive.

I invariably have to do a couple of hours of work every weekend, and I used to have to lug my laptop home to do it. Now I'm free. (And no chance of forgetting my laptop at home on a Monday morning, either.)

And if I had something come up on a weekday evening, or needed to do something on a sick day, I was just SOL (Exchange webmail in Safari just doesn't get you that far). Now my work machine is always available to me at home (when I want it) and nicely ignorable when I don't. 😃

[BostonFrank]

I use it to:

1) video chat in Windows

2) troubleshoot friend's PCs

But the idea of "cloning" a work environment is interesting. Is there a way for me to take my work laptop image and transfer it to a virtual machine??

[admin]

Is there a way for me to take my work laptop image and transfer it to a virtual machine??

If you're using Windows, VMware Converter[/url] will do the trick.

[aliasme]

Software dev in Visual Studio, SQL Server, test out the appearance of websites when doing Ruby on Rails dev, write papers and use Excel (Mac Office feels wonky to me). Fusion is great. It's entirely possible to work in a Windows client for extended periods of time and do 'real work'.