Fireworks Please: VMware Fusion 1.0 Release Candidate Now Available!

[Pat_Lee]

VMware Fusion 1.0 Release Candidate (build 50460) is now available. VMware Fusion is now feature complete with the Release Candidate and we are driving towards general availability in August as we previously announced.

For more details on what is new in this release, see the announcement:

http://www.vmware.com/community/ann.jspa?annID=365

I just want to thank everyone in these forums for trying VMware Fusion and giving us your valuable feedback, it has helped us develop an even better product.

Download the RC and let us know what you think!

Happy 4th of July to those you in the US and elsewhere celebrating.

Best,

Pat Lee

Senior Product Manager - Mac Products

VMware

[CJConline]

Really fantastic work Pat and the team. Obviously everyone has been working really hard on improving the product. I am a little disappointed however that there has been no mention about any attention being given to the problematic VM Shared Folders implementation.

Thanks, again,

Chris

PS: Can you clarify the statement about allowing Fusion to "... create a new bootcamp VM for your exisitng partition to get the best settings and performance." Does this mean running Fusion with a copy of the bootcamp partition in a VM rather than Fusion booting up directly from the bootcamp partition as in the current beta? Sorry if it is explained elsewhere, I couldn't seem to find any further details in the release notes.

[gozeronline]

Any word if the Vista/Boot Camp activation issues are going to be resolved in RC2? I can't wait to plunk my money down, but I need this resolved first.

[adamsimpson]

Great work, seems a bit faster loading into windows and unity is much better. This seems to me like a very solid RC.

Edit: After using it for a while it seems much more responsive and I really can't tell I'm running a VM, very excellent work!

[admin]

PS: Can you clarify the statement about allowing

Fusion to "... create a new bootcamp VM for your

exisitng partition to get the best settings and

performance."

The easiest way to tell Fusion to create a new Boot Camp virtual machine is to delete "~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/". As long as you haven't added other virtual disks, this shouldn't cause any data loss, since the data for Boot Camp virtual machines is stored on the Boot Camp partition itself.

[dp_fusion]

The trackball problem within Unity continues, and screen artifacts and smearing also remain when dragging Unified Windows apps around the screen. Neither is a show stopper for me.

MacBook Pro 15", early version, latest firmeware, 2G RAM, 10.4.10, XP SP2.

Nice job on the release - other than these two minor squawks it works great. CPU idle percentage sits at 80% with XP running IE and webmail.

[veggiepirate]

I can't seem to download 50460. The link is labeled correctly on the product page, but when you actually get to the download page, it's just build 49528 still.

[BP9906]

I'm excited. Looks a lot faster and glad to see 3d support back for my Mini.

I added the suggested option for keeping the start menu visible and it works, however my dock is still in the way. I dont prefer to hide the dock, so if there's a future option to move it above my dock, that'd be great.

Speed-wise, this release does seem faster than the previous. Looks like upgraded drivers and functionality are to the cause.

Love the enhancements for Unity. Icons appearing all over, which is great!

Only concern is the drag drop fuctionality mentioned doesnt appear to be working. I drag a .doc from Mac desktop to an open Win Explorer window or to Word open and nothing happens while in Unity mode.

Screen re-draw bug is definitely fixed.

Wish I had more control over the Launch App window (like sorting and removing listed apps).

Outside of that, those are my good and bad comments. Love it and definitely the best release so far!!

[zvikico]

AWESOME!!!!

My BootCamp Vista Ultimate looks really cool with Unity now, working smoothly on my new MBP.

Parallels cannot do anything with a BootCamp and Vista...

Great work guys. I'm pre-ordering mine.

[dailo]

I don't know if it's just on my end, but just some bugs that I found with beta 4 and RC1. Without any Windows open at all in Unity Mode I cannot get back into single/full screen window mode without opening a window first. If I open the launcher window or any application from the Guest OS it will allow me to select one of the other view options.

Also I think Unity is so awesome, but one thing that I find more convenient in Parallels is that I can hide the taskbar, but if I have Parallels active and I hit the Apple key (Windows key to the guest) the start menu will pop up and I can access the start menu. I know I can do this if I enable the taskbar, but it'd be nice if I could do this even when the taskbar is hidden. Launcher and accessing the items through the dock is definitely handy, but I'm just so used to being able to use the Windows key to access things :). Thanks for the great release and I am definitely going to pre order now!

[DaveP]

Pat

Great to see the RC. It has been a great fun working on this beta, and I've done a few with VMware! It has also made for a more harmonious marriage as my wife, who is only comfortable with Windows XP, is right at home on the Mac.

Now I'll be cheeky; looking forward to Workstation on the Mac.

Sorry couldn't resist.

Dave

[aliasme]

It's snappy and working great. Many thanks!

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=182191565&size=l

[Pat_Lee]

Any word if the Vista/Boot Camp activation issues are

going to be resolved in RC2? I can't wait to plunk

my money down, but I need this resolved first.

No, we are not able to land a big feature like Vista Boot Camp activation before GA. We can't take the risk of adding a major new feature without time to test it properly.

We know it is important and we will continue to work on it to add to a future release of VMware Fusion, though I can't give you a date or timeline for a future release.

Best,

Pat

[gozeronline]

Thanks for the information Pat; I'm glad to get an official response on this.

I hope you don't find this rude, I need to ask: without this being fixed, doesn't it make Vista Boot Camp support almost useless?

[Pat_Lee]

Thanks for the information Pat; I'm glad to get an

official response on this.

Glad to be of help.

I hope you don't find this rude, I need to ask:

without this being fixed, doesn't it make Vista Boot

Camp support almost useless?

You need to know, that is completely fair. We claimed experimental support for Vista Boot Camp in beta 4, it was experimental because of the activation issue.

The experimental support for Vista Boot Camp will work fine for customers using volume licenses. However, you are correct about issues with standard licenses.

We will continue to improve this as we move forward, but we couldn't find a solution for 1.0 that met the needs you expect.

Pat

[gozeronline]

Thanks for the direct answer; I'll definitely look forward to purchasing Fusion in the future. I've been so impressed with Fusion that I'd probably purchase a copy if a free update to 1.0 is going to add this feature.

Thanks again for your hard work and an amazing product.

[Pat_Lee]

Thanks for the direct answer; I'll definitely look

forward to purchasing Fusion in the future. I've

been so impressed with Fusion that I'd probably

purchase a copy if a free update to 1.0 is going to

add this feature.

I can tell you that that we are working hard in this area, but we can't commit to a timeline due to VMware policy and current constraints in discussing forward looking statements.

Thanks again for your hard work and an amazing

product.

Thanks for your support.

Pat