i develop extensively on fusion using xp and visual studio 2008. using dot net 2,3,3.5. i am happy with the performance of fusion (not windows) and accustomed to periodic restarts required as windows grinds to a halt..
however i had the misfortune of transferring one of my development images across to a native windows platform to use in vmware player for demonstration purposes (less invasive on the target machine) to discover how inferior the player is as a product. after massaging memory, reducing the number of processors, remembering not to use it full screen it still keels over. this isn't just on vista it's on xp too.. i downloaded a 30 day copy of workstation 6.5. whilst this carries some extra admin functionality it's no better than the player; in fact in some areas it's actually inferior.
i can run the same vm on both platforms and bar the performance (which is appaling on a windows host) developed applications fail to draw properly in the windows hosted vm. they draw properly native and in fusion but not in a windows hosted vm.. and why does the vmware logo keep popping up and the window switch from full screen when you start a dot net application? how annoying is that?
i have been reliably developing windows apps using vms (starting with virtual pc, yuk..) on a mac for years. i have just spent some months selling virtualisation to my boss. the vmware player may have lost me the case.
whilst i can see i've been spoilt by making a good decision to use macs in the first place.. get a grip guys, this simply isn't good enough. fusion is ok, there is always things you can add to make a good product better; the player needs you NOW! it's crap.
