At the present time Windows 7 in any release is not supported by Apple on the Boot Camp partition nor is it supported in any manner under Fusion.
1. Ethernet Driver: Even when using the latest version of VMware Fusion we must still manually add "ethernet0.virtualDEV="e1000" to the Virtual Machine .vmx file in order to provide ethernet functionality.
If you use Windows Server 2008 as the Template you do not need to manually add it in a normal file based Fusion Virtual Machine. As far as the Boot Camp partition and running it as a Virtual Machine see comment at top of reply.
2. Activation Loop: When switching between the Boot Camp partition and the Virtual Machine I am notified that only 3 days remain to activate Windows 7. Activation of both machines via internet has so far been nothing more than a hassle but should a limited number of activations be allowed I'll run into a problem sooner or later.
Under normal circumstances WPA is handled by have VMware Tools installed and working properly other then that you can try uninstalling/reinstalling VMware Tools or see comment at top of reply.
3. Windows 7 Aero Functionality: I cannot enable Aero functionality on the virtual machine even with a registry hack, although the virtual video card is reported as having 120 MB of RAM and supports DirectX 9. I've read that when running Windows 7 as a virtual machine in the Mac OS X partition this functionality has been available in the newest Beta release, but apparently when running the virtual machine from a Boot Camp partition this is not the case.
At the present time Aero is not supported under VMware Fusion even for supported OSes that have Aero.
4. VMware Services not Starting: After booting up the Windows 7 virtual machine I receive an error message that the VMware Service failed to start. I need to start it manually although the auto start registry entries for both the service and the task bar are available. I have tried to change compatibility of these applications to run as Windows Vista SP2 programs and have ensured they are all set to run with administrator priveleges without success.
Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling VMware Tools?
5. Cannot reinstall VMware Tools: When running the Windows 7 Virtual Machine in the Mac OS X operating system I cannot reinstall the VMware Tools. The option to install these tools is not highlighted in the Virtual Machine menu.
The Virtual Machine must be running otherwise it's normal for it to be grayed out.
On my system under Windows 7 RC VMware Tools installed and all Services are running normally however the VMware Tool command on the Virtual Machine menu remains as Update VMware Tools and even if I execute it and VMware Tools Installer runs through successfully it remains as Update VMware Tools and I attribute this to... see comment at top of reply.
I admit these issues are relatively minor and are reporting them more as a heads-up to the developers, but would nonetheless appreciate any advice you may be able to provide. I've not yet deleted the Boot Camp virtual machine to start over but am more than willing to try if so advised.
I'm quite sure that the Developers are testing Windows 7 however it always helps to get feedback from the Users.
