Early 2011 MacBook Pro & VM Ware Fusion 3--what are the issues?

[terrjack]

I've been googling around and finally landed here.

We are starting to deploy 2011 MBPs and have to run Windows XP

due to Novell issues.

We of course just found out about Apple no longer supporting Windows XP

natively in bootcamp ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4410 ).

So we want to look at running VM Ware Fusion 3 for it,

but so far I've read about issues with Battery life, running hot,

and graphics chipset issues....?

Can anyone post back a llist of what issues they have encountered

with VM Ware  Fusion 3 running on an Early 2011 MacBook Pro

with the Sandy Bridge chipsets, and Windows XP SP3 installed?

thanks

[terrjack]

bump

[WoodyZ]

You can download VMware Fusion and use it free for 30 days so why don't you just download it and create a Windows XP Virtual Machine that you can run for 30 days as well without having to activate it, if not using VLK, and test drive it and see first hand what if any issues there are!

IMO Preforming your own real word tests is the best way to go.

[julsssark]

I run Win XP SP3 on my MBP 2011 and I've had no problems with it. Stable as always and a noticable improvement in speed thanks to Sandy Bridge. I am not using Novell.

julius

[terrjack]

Thank You Julius for your most helpful post.

Are you having any Graphic Driver related issues?

Googling around this seems to an issue,

as well as decrease in battery life while running both environments.

[Mikero]

There will always be a battery impact when running a VM due to the necessary hardware overhead (more RAM, CPU cycles, HD spinning in the case of a rotational drive).

Currently, Support is not tracking any issues that are specifically related to this hardware.  I've seen anomalous things with folks who have the hardware, sure, but we're not convinced it's exclusive to the new MacBook Pro's.

[julsssark]

My XP VM is used exclusively for IE7 and I have had not graphical glitches. My "full-time" VM is Win7 running Office 2010 and I have not had any graphical glitches there either. I can't speak to battery life since I don't usually run the VM when I am on battery.

julius

[ErocMillsie]

The only issue I have is copy and paste does not work between host and VM.  Drag and drop works great, copy and paste...no go.

[julsssark]

I have no problems with copy and paste between the host and VM.

julius

[ErocMillsie]

I'm very new to Mac, but all I'm trying to do is in Finder, right click on a .gif file, right click copy, open the windowed XP VM and right click paste.  The option is grayed.  If I drag and drop from Finder to the XP VM it works great.  Any ideas?  I've uninstalled an reinstalled VMware Tools too.

[mflender]

I have a XP sp3 vm and a Windows 7 sp1 pro 64bit vm running in VMware Fusion on a 2011 MBP with no issues. Windows 7 experience score is a 6.0 out of 7.9. My coworker's 1 year old CoreI7 HP Elitebook gets a 5.9. 🙂 Both VM's have the Novell Client and are authenticating against Netware 6.5sp8.

[vSolid]

Dear terrjack

I have asked the same Question & I get the answer

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1733980#1733980

BR

[julsssark]

Copy and paste of files is not supported between VMs. You need to set-up a shared folder in the VM in order to access files on the host machine. Copy and paste of text/content works fine between the host and VM (i.e., copy text in Mac Word and paste into Windows VM Word).

julius