ShaddamIV's Posts

Interesting... but why does VMWare suggest to uninstall the Fusion 4 "compatible" tools and re-install the Fusion 3.1.3 tools? I understood that "Fusion 2 and 3 compatible" means "run this with an older version of Fusion". I did *not* uninstall and re-install the 3.1.3 tools after the downgrade, and my VM works quite nicely in Fusion 3.1.3, including correct display of IE 9 and Windows Live programs, and with full functionality of all my games (in particular, Battle for Middle Earth and Homeworld 2 which wouldn't run in Fusion 4). Weird.

I suggest that you uninstall the VMWare tools in Windows prior to deleting Fusion 4. Then, re-install 3.1.3. Start the VM, install the Fusion 3 tools, and you should be all set. You could try changing the compatibility mode in Fusion from Fusion 4 to Fusion 2 and 3 (in the Fusion VM control panel) in the Fusion 4 VM prior to deleting Fusion 4. This will install a set of Fusion 3 compatible tools (and the Fusion 3 compatible virtual graphics adapter). I did that with my VM - but I'm not running a BootCamp VM, so I don't know how you'll fare. Good luck!

This is how I did it: 1. Open Fusion, but don't start the VM (or if it's set to autostart, shut it down - but don't quit Fusion) 2. Open Fusion's control panel, select "Compatibility" 3. Set the VM to be compatible with Versions 2 and 3 of Fusion 4. Start the VM     Fusion will install the Fusion 2 / 3 compatible Fusion Tools 5. Shut down the VM 6. Drag Fusion 4 from the Mac's Application folder (or wherever you'd installed it) to the trash 7. Re-install Fusion 3 (use 3.1.3, it's the best release of Fusion yet in my mind) 8. Start the VM That's it. Good luck!

My downgrade went quite smoothly: 1. Open Fusion, but don't start the VM (or if it's set to autostart, shut it down - but don't quit Fusion) 2. Open Fusion's control panel, select "Compatibility" 3. Set the VM to be compatible with Versions 2 and 3 of Fusion 4. Start the VM     Fusion will install the Fusion 2 / 3 compatible Fusion Tools 5. Shut down the VM 6. Drag Fusion 4 from the Mac's Application folder (or wherever you'd installed it) to the trash 7. Re-install Fusion 3 (use 3.1.3, it's the best release of Fusion yet in my mind) 8. Start the VM That's it. Good luck!

Hello TheLoneVM, I am encountering this problem on a purely virtual VM, i.e. no boot camp involved. Yes, it is indeed strange that the "force software rendering" setting of IE 9 isn't honoured by Windows. Nevertheless, the problem of apps not displaying their content properly isn't limited to IE 9 - it seems that at least some Windows Live applications (messenger, live mail) are "hit" as well. So, as per your bullet points: 1. I'm running a MacBookAir4,2. It uses an embedded Intel HD 3000 Graphics "card" 2. It's *not* a BootCamp VM 3. The VM was migrated from Fusion 3.1.3 4. IE and Windows Live Mail are the latest versions:     Live Mail 2011, Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3538.0513)     IE 9, Version 9.0.8112.16421 5. I'm using a German-language Windows 7 (64) Enterprise on a German-language Mac OS X 10.7.1 6. The "IE 9 not rendering" issue was happening on all websites before I changed the setting in the registry. Text on any website was never rendered. If an image was referenced directly from the HTML, it was displayed. (For example, the painting of Shakespeare on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare is shown, but the text isn't.) Since I've "forced" the setting in the registry, I don't have this particular problem. 7. "Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering" is checked, greyed out, and I can't toggle it. 8. Additional info: Any text *except the email's content* within the Windows Live Mail window does not display. Strangely, "toggle triangles" (which e.g. open / close threaded emails) are shown, as is the content of the email itself. What is not shown, however, are the email's subject, sender, etc (the headers, which are usually shown in a box above the email content in Windows Live Mail). Hope this helps. I find it a bit peculiar that this issue didn't pop up during testing, it seems to hit a lot of people here. It feels as if Fusion 4 wasn't fully tested on Macs with Intel's HD 3000 chipset.

What's your issue with this? Inactive *and* free memory are both available to the Mac, so it will use these 880 MB. Inactive memory is a bit like a memory cache. If the VM needs a previously released chunk of memory, the contents of that memory are quickly available and nothing will have to be loaded from disk. If another app needs that memory, it just uses it. As far as I'm aware there are no performance differences involved when using inactive vs. free memory.

> It's not just a IE 9 issue (MSN and other applications do not display objects on screen) True. The above fix only makes IE 9 display content. Windows Live Mail does not display properly, and - as someone else wrote in this forum - neither does Microsoft's Messenger. This is why I downgraded to 3.1.3 - well, that and the fact that neither Homeworld 2 nor Battle for Middle Earth would run on the Fusion 4 VM (they run very well in Fusion 3.1.3). My overall impression is that the updated graphics card emulation is not quite where it needs to be.

I just downgraded (set the compatibilty to Fusion 2 & 3), deleted Fusion 4 from the Applications directory on the Mac, re-installed Fusion 3.13, and the VM started up without any problems. I'd really like Fusion 4 to work for me but I guess I'll wait until at least the Windows Live issues are solved. There may be a solution for the games issues I have. The release notes at https://www.vmware.com/support/fusion4/doc/releasenotes_fusion_401.html mention a variable MESA_EXTENSION_MAX_YEAR that should be set to a specific value for "older" games to run. I haven't tried that yet, though.

This seems to happen when you change Fusion's compatibilty from Fusion 4 to Fusion 2&3 - the VM loses its sound card, and when you go back up to Fusion 4 compatibility (which Fusion prompts you to do when you start it up) you lose sound. As described above, you'll need to manually add the sound device.

For a solution to the IE 9 related problem see this thread:                                   Fusion + Win7 IE9 Rendering broken                     ... but I have the same issue with Windows Live Mail. A lot of the Windows Live stuff doesn't seem to display content properly. Haven't found a solution to those issues yet.

I found something on the web regarding the stickiness of the SoftwareFallback setting: http://www.mydigitallife.info/force-enable-gpu-hardware-acceleration-graphics-rendering-on-old-gpu-in-ie9/ "In addition, Internet Explorer may automatically disable and turn off GPU graphics hardware acceleration support, and in order to avoid the possibility, it’s recommended (if the hack does help in IE’s performance) to remove the ability for SYSTEM user to write and edit the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\GPU registry key. To do so, follow the brief guide below at your own risk. Right click on “GPU” and select “Permissions”. Go to “Advanced”, and uncheck the “Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent”. Then, add “Administrators” group or your user name and allows “Full Control” permissions, and (must) add in “SYSTEM” user with “Read” (at least Read Control and Query Value) privileges." ... I did that once and then opened IE (everything was fine), changed the permissions on GPU back to what they were (in particular re-enabled the inheritable permissions) and have had no trouble since. Enjoy!

For those who cannot change the IE 9 settings of the 'Use software rendering' setting in Internet Options: I've had the same problem right after having installed Fusion 4. To fix, you need to edit the Windows registry. 1. Close IE. 2. In regedit.exe, find this (either by using the 'Find' command, or by manually navigating towards those keys) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mic­rosoft\Internet Explorer\GPU There you'll find the 'Software Fallback' key in two versions. One is called "SoftwareFallback" (for 32 bit Windows), the other "Wow64-SoftwareFallback" (for 64 bit Windows). 3. If the value is "0", change it to "1". I did it for both keys but I guess it's sufficient if you change the value only for the key appropriate to your Windows version (32 or 64 bit). 4. Close the registry editor. 5. Open IE 9 and enjoy. Hope this helps, s.

Update 2: Saving from withing Office 2007 works as long as I open the file from the shared folder, modify it (e.g. by writing a few words), and then saving it. Creating a new file in Office 2007 and trying to save it to the shared folder does not work. Well this is better than what happens with Office 2010, where I can't save a file that I've opened from the shared folder, but it's still less than satisfactory... Here's to hoping for an eventual fix.

Update: I'm just trying this now with Office 2007 in my Windows 7 VM, and saving to a shared drive on a FAT partition works well. It just doesn't work with Office 2010. Why might this be, what could I change to get it to work? Thank you again!

Thank you all for your kind words and helpful discussions. The reason I'd like to avoid NTFS-3G is that this will break Apple's startup control panel - I won't be able to use that for switching between Mac OS X and BootCamp. I know I can hit the alt key on startup to select OS but with my non-canonical 3-partition setup (HFS+, NTFS, FAT partitions on one disk) using NTFS-3G I've managed to break a hard disk on my old MBAir and would like to avoid having to go thru the same experience on the new one. It is kind of strange that Office won't save to a Fusion Shared Folder that's sitting on a FAT partition. Parallels doesn't have any issues with that. (But I'd like to avoid any Parallels-Fusion discussion here. Parallels screws around with the Mac OS so much, and installs so many features I never use or need, it's almost like having Word with its 10,000 unnecessary functions all over.) If I share the folder on the FAT partition with SMB in Mac OS X, I can't see it in the Fusion Windows 7's Explorer. How do I go about that? I don't see it in Network, I can't connect to it as a remote drive... what do I need to do? Thank you!