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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

MacBook Pro - How Many Cores to Designate to Fusion (Vista Ultimate)

I have a full version of Vista Ultimate which I haven't even opened yet... and a MacBook Pro with an Intel Core Duo (the first intel macbook pro)... and have been using Xp on Boot Camp partition...

Should I be apply only 1 of the 2 cores to Vista.. or can I apply both...

Thanks

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

Vista is a computing resource vampire, give it all the resources you can spare (not kidding). 2 cores, minimum Smiley Happy

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

I just got done installing Vista... and Fusion never asked me to choose how many cores...

It did when I started to install Xp.. (but never finished.. past the choice of how many GB's... )

However... full screen isn't full screen... its about the size that Xp's wallpaper is when its not stretched out... or tiled...

Is it supposed to be like that ? ? ?

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

I have a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 4000... and in general its very fast cursor-wise... but inside VM Vista... it's really lagging... like I'm dragging it by its feet... I suppose maybe I should install the drivers.. but ... seems like Vista would've come with the driver...

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

>Fusion never asked me to choose how many cores...



Sorry I mispoke by saying core, I actually meant virtual CPUs. In the New Virtual Machine Assistant, you have to expand the Advanced CPU and Memory options to adjust this:






>However... full screen isn't full screen... its about the size that Xp's wallpaper is when its not stretched out... or tiled...
>Is it supposed to be like that ? ? ?



No, it's suppose to appear like a normal full screen OS view. Have you installed the VMware Tools in Vista yet (Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools)?

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bgertzfield
Commander
Commander

Hi Obeechi,

Try installing VMware Tools from the Virtual Machine -> Install VMware Tools menu. That will automatically resize your guest operating system when you enter full screen, or when you resize the VM's window.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Are we supposed to install Mac Drivers for Boot Camp for our Vista VM using Fusion Beta 2 ? ? ?

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

It's not required, but if you want to use some of the Apple devices of the host, e.g. an iSight, then you would install the Boot Camp drivers.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Oh drat... didn't notice the drop down for core choice... this means I'll have to uninstall and then reinstall Vista...

Do we get the VMWare Tools from within Vista or from within OSX ? ? ?

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

oh... I got that VM Tools... now... it was as easy as rebooting and following the intructions...

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

You know I gave it 512MB RAM and now want to give it 1GB... (I have 2 GB total.. )... and going into Virtual Machine > Settings... its grayed out... (and there is no mention of how many cpu cores there are... )

Oh... and this is really awesome with VM Tools installed... really amazing.. the rocks and water view just kills... I don't think I'll ever let Vista's gadget sidebar in on the game.. cause they look just terrible... and that Trash Can in Vista... being in the top left corner is perfect placement... as if to say.. Mac and Windows are diametrically opposed... or diagonalmetrically opposed...

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

You can only edit the System Hardware section of the settings when the VM is powered off.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Well.. sorry... but I don't see where I do this... I looked OSX preferences... and also powered down the VMachine... and looked at all the menu options of the Fusion...

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

>and also powered down the VMachine... and looked at all the menu options of the Fusion...



To adjust the VM setting's, you can power down the machine and in the virtual machine's toolbar, click the "Settings" icon. Or choose Virtual Machine > Settings. You can adjust the around of RAM under System Hardware > Memory and virtual processors under System Hardware > Processors. But keep in mind your guest OS may not take advantage of adding a second virtual processor without further reconfiguration.


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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

I see it now... as far as where number of CPU's are listed...

Virtual Machine > Settings > System Hardware > Processors...

and I have only 1 core... and though I haven't run any programs yet.. except for Word Pad.. with only 512RAM and 1 core.. it isn't all that bad having this run on in a window in OSX... I like it better than Xp already.. I was so sick of that blue they had... with its flatness/clunkness... just awful... Royale' theme was a little better but still kind of aggravating... Vista is a little more orderly in its layout than Xp with Xp's popup All Programs submenu's et.. I've seen Vista in machines at stores... and played around with it... and I think it runs more elegantly on the mac in a vm... than on some of the clunky hardware out there... can only get better as things move along... the underdog will be the poor guy who has to run Vista natively on non-mac hardware...

I mean once upon time the 'best' pc was IBM... and the rest were inferior clones... and now Apple makes the best 'PC'.. and thats only a subset of what the Mac can do.. and what the Mac can do is only a subset of what the company (Apple Inc) is currently doing... Times have really changed... not bad for a company that was on death's doormat a few years ago... and me?.. I get to finally perform any and all kinds of work on the laptop of my choice.. I'm really lucky Apple chose Intel... cause otherwise.. I'd be back to the same dilemma.. and I'm not sure I'd be able to get anywhere in life meaningful, longterm ... I'd be the has-been that never was... at least now.. I have a chance...

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks.. rcardona2k ... I was just able to change the RAM from 512 to 1024...

Virtual Machine > Shut Down Guest... then..

Virtual Machine > Settings ... and the slider thing is blue and not just a colorless outline... (though Apply is grayed out.. until a change is made.. ).. not sure what I was doing wrong before...

As far as the CPU goes... something I saw.. made me believe that you shouldn't change the core number... without uninstalling and reinstalling...

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

I'm at a WiFi spot (T-Mobile).. and before I installed VM Tools.. I couldn't go online at the office over the ethernet connection... from within VM Vista... after installing VM Tools.. it did one of those automatic updates... of Windows... and until that point didn't even know I was connected (with no virus protection yet.. )...

Since I'm going to maybe unstall and reinstall so I can switch CPU number... from 1 to 2... I want to hold off getting Virus protection... so I just went to

Virtual Machine > Settings > Removable Devices > Ethernet ... and deselected "Connected" then clicked "Apply".. and went to IE... and it couldn't get on the net... though OSX is still connected...

BTW.. I allocated 20GB.. during the install for Vista Ultimate.. and it shows that 12.5 GB are used up.. out of a total of 19.9GB... I was concerned about how much space I would really have after install.. Glad to see its not just 5GB remaining... (that gives me a little breathing room... while I mull over 200GB HD's... )

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

>As far as the CPU goes... something I saw.. made me believe that you shouldn't change the core number... without uninstalling and reinstalling.

Hence my brushover about "may need further configuration" in the guest OS. Unfortunately changing from uniprocessor to symmetric multiprocessing in light of the number of logical processors that can be made available to an OS is not something most OS's are designed for. At best what I've seen is the guest OS doesn't recognize the additional vCPU, at worst the guest fails to boot.

For Windows, the repair process is akin to re-install but you can preserve your apps. For Linux, recompiling an SMP-aware kernel is not so bad if you have the kernel source and gcc installed. I say "not so bad" for anyone versed in compiling a kernel -- which for most non-technical Mac users is as obscure as picking up a radically different foreign language.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Really love how I can hide the Toolbar... remember reading some complaints about the Toolbar getting in the way.. well right now.. I'd say its really seamless.... with it closed... really cool.. only downside is... if your not careful... just trying to close a windows program... if you click on the red button of OSX.. it'll shut down your Guest... minor really... only need to that once.. to learn.. not to do that... (well.. maybe twice... )

One of the things that really confuses me.. is .. a program like Diskeeper with it's I-FAAST.. is really great to have when running natively on NTFS.... but is there any use of this with a VM running on HFS+... I can't see how.. unless NTFS is virtualized... but this is a blur to me.. can't see it clearly...

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

Well could someone running Linux just do a uninstall and reinstall... seems like that could be simpler than compiling...

Uninstalling and Reinstalling for me at this point ... is really no big deal... since I haven't loaded any programs just yet...

You know what strikes me as odd is that with Beta 2... the recommended value for RAM is 512MB... which is the same as the Minimum RAM...

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