Two questions for Fusion 5 (Full screen unity and Auto Pause)

[Fletchni]

Hi,

I have two questions that I can't seem to successfully Google or find answers for on the VMware support, forums, or communities. These two questions are probably because I have migrated from Parallels.

Running Windows 7 as my guest OS (on a new MBA with 10.8.2):

1. Is it possible to have a unity window run in full screen? By this I mean like many Mac OS X apps run in full screen and in effect have their own desktop / space. This is very useful when I want to stay in unity, but briefly have the app in full screen.
   
   
2. Is there an auto pause option for when there is no visible app running? I notice much has been said about saving battery life in Fusion 5, but it seems that Fusion will always run, even if I have no windows apps open. In parallels, there is this option, and I believe it makes a difference to battery life.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Nic.

[avanish321]

Hi Fletchni,

Welcome to the community.

Here are the answers

1 ) Yes you can. In unity you may run any windows app in full screen ( application in  full screen ) and have each app run on its own space or desktop.

2)  Check out this article  . When Pass power status to VMis enabled , if  mac runs on battery , fusion will suspend guest automatically if it is idle for 5 mins.

[Fletchni]

Thank you for taking the time to reply (and doing so promptly). But I am a little confused as to your answers:

1. I still don't see any way to get an app in unity (by that I mean, for example, Microsoft Word) to display in full screen mode and take its own Mac OS X desktop. I don't doubt you are right, but I cannot find a way to do so, nor can I find anything in help, etc.
   
   
2. I will take your word for this answer and test it... but the article you linked to doesn't really describe what I had hoped for. I don't want the machine to suspend (and maybe this is also dependent on the power profile in Windows). I simply wanted VMWare itself to simply pause the VM.

Once again, I appreciate the help,

Nic.

[avanish321]

Regarding the unity and spaces let me test it and get back to you but as far as auto suspend is concerned, it should work. Try it out. Autopause is not available in vmware as far as i know.

[WoodyZ]

Is there an auto pause option for when there is no visible app running? I notice much has been said about saving battery life in Fusion 5, but it seems that Fusion will always run, even if I have no windows apps open. In parallels, there is this option, and I believe it makes a difference to battery life.

Have a look at: Pause a Virtual Machine

[avanish321]

Woodyz :  the link which you have given has information on pausing a vm manually . OP was looking for autopause feature in fusion

[WoodyZ]

avanish wrote: Woodyz :  the link which you have given has information on pausing a vm manually . OP was looking for autopause feature in fusion

I am well aware of that and at the time I posted I didn't have time to expound on it!  I provided it as an alternative since AutoPause is only internal to VMware Fusion itself, as when a Host disk is getting full, etc.  If the User wants a solution to help manage battery life without shutting down or suspending the VM's when not directly using them for a bit, then they can either manually pause from the VMware Fusion GUI or use a scripted solution incorporating vmrun.

Message was edited by: WoodyZ - Originally posted, Nov 7, 2012 3:27 PM.

[Fletchni]

Hi,

I just wanted to thank you all for responding so quickly yesterday. From what I can make out is that one of my questions has been answered:

• There is no auto-pause feature in Fusion (with Windows as guest OS). It seems there are ways around it, and it is not difficult to assign a shortcut key to the pause menu function (and if I had the inclination, one could probably write a background AppleScript to build in auto-pause).
  
  
• Full screen for Unity apps does appear to be missing... I can find nothing that indicates it exists. This is a shame in a way... but maybe that is the way I use Windows in my Mac.

I have NO interest in running Windows... I am a Mac user. But I do have an interest (or a need) to run a few Windows applications (Excel being a key example). So, this is why I am so keen on them being integrated into my Mac environment and to just be there when I need them.

But once again, Thank you.

Nic.