VMware Fusion 2

I've been a Parallels user for years now, but I had tried Fusion when it first came out. It wasn't all that great then, but I knew it would get better.. and here we are with Fusion 2.

The first OS I installed was SCO 5.0.7. I had that running under Fusion before with some small issues (never could get it to work under Parallels), but to be sure of everything, I trashed that old Fusion install entirely, installed Fusion 2 fresh and then installed SCO again.

That went as smoothly as it had before although once again I can not get the mouse to work with the GUI (had same problem with the older Fusion). I even tried connecting a USB mouse; no luck. I don't really need the GUI for this, and if I did need it I assume I could VNC in or use X from my Mac, so that's fine. I really only need this to read a man page now and then or to remind myself of how something works.. there's not much SCO left, fortunately.

By the way, I had a report that SCO 5.0.5 will install under VMware Fusion 1.1.1 build 72241, but not under Fusion 2. He reports "The new version 2 will run the image, but will not allow an install, even under compatibility mode." He also said that he "had no luck with installing SCO 5.0.5 on a trial VMware workstation for linux, or Parallels for Mac".

(I certainly don't recommend anyone running SCO 5.0.5 - I don't recommend running SCO dot anything now - but this company really needs to keep a legacy app running and it seems that this will do the trick.. though getting hold of an older VMware might be an obstacle for anyone else hoping to do this.)

I also used Fusion's "Import" to convert my Parallels XP install and a Parallels Centos system. My first attempt with XP failed because I had not properly shut down the system before converting. Make sure you do that; it's a big waste of time otherwise because Fusion doesn't know it has a problem until it has done a lot of work.

After the import, I started up XP and it complained that my hardware had changed and I needed to re-register. I didn't want to do that as I might not like XP under Fusion. I'm not really sure how XP's licensing/registration stuff works, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to have two registrations of the same license. I had no choice, though.

Fortunately everything was OK. XP seems as fast or maybe even faster than it was under Parallels. I don't ask a lot of XP - like the SCO install, I use this rarely and lightly. Fusion could be mishandling things that I don't know or care about - but so could Parallels.

So, since it works for me and I don't need two copies of XP hanging about wasting disk space (and probably violating Microsoft's EULA), I removed the Windows VM from Parallels. That left Parallels with no VM's and after a moments hesitation I removed Parallels entirely. I have no problems with Parallels, it has always worked well for me, but why have two virtualization products? I'll just stay with Fusion.

If you want a great guide to learning Fusion, consider Joe Kissel's Take Control of VMware Fusion 2, a $10.00 PDF E-book that will teach you everything you need to know.

Tony Lawrence 2008-10-29 Rating: 4.0