Delboy’s Blog

****** DO NOT UP DATE TO THIS VERSION ******

Today I upgraded my VMware Fusion to the new Beta 2.0 version. Here are a few things that might be help full if you are thinking of upgrading. I am currently doing my testing on a MacBook Pro with a 2.2Gbz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with 4Gb of RAM

Problems I had with the upgrade

• This is not an quick and easy upgrade. Yes the software itself upgrades easily but the problems start when you need to upgrade your VM’s
• Make sure that you shut down all your VM’s before you do the upgrade, I found that once I upgraded and resumed my old VM’s I had problems shutting down to do the upgrade.
• Do not install VMware Tools with out upgrading the VM first (Virtual Machine - Upgrade Virtual Machine)
• I found that the upgrade, that included installing VMTools, took a very long time on some of my VM’s. For some of my VM’s this took over an Hour.
• Installing VMTools asks for the Microsoft I386 file, this was a problem because of the ISO/CD issue below
• VMTools would not install on one of my VM’s

Other Problems I have had

• I have not been able to get my VM’s to see my printers that are installed on my Macbook Pro
• There seams to be a problem when changing an ISO file for the virtual CD-ROM. Even when I disconnected and reconnected with a new ISO my VM would only see the old ISO. I had to connect the physical CD-ROM to fix this problem however this did not work on all my VM’s. Sometimes i had to reboot the VM to fix this problem.
• My VM’s are taking a lot longer to resume now
• Switching between Full Screen and Sigle Screen take a lot longer
• Shared Folder’s no longer works. When trying to get this to work my VM even crashed the first time on a Fusion product
• It takes a lot longer to establish a network connection when resuming a VM

What I Like about the New Version

• Multiple monitor support
• The ability to add more than 1 Hard Drive to a VM is very nice, especially if I need more space inside a VM
• The new Virtual Machine Library is much better
• The new setting menu is much easier to use

Over all after testing for the afternoon I would advise people to give this beta a miss I believe that there is still a bit of work needed here before the full release. The fact that my VM’s seem a lot slower and the CD/ISO problem is a real turn off for me. Now the big question do I go back or stick with the beta? This I am still not sure on maybe I will continue to use the Beta for a few days before I make up my mind.

***** UPDATE*****

As I have been working with this I have found the following problems with some not all of my VM’s

• Unable to run Windows Update. (I was able to install SP3 on some of my VM’s but Windows update just would not run all all of my VM’s).
• Microsoft Office Documents get corrupted when trying to download or open from Lotus Notes, again this worked on some of my VM’s but not all

Looks like I will be reverting back to the old version of fusion later today and waiting for the full release. I will post an update as to how the roll back goes. Wish me luck

***** Reverting back to VMware Fusion 1.1.2 *****

OK so I have decided to move back to Fusion 1.1.2 as the beta product is defiantly just that a beta product. Although the move was straightforward it wasn’t completely painless.
Here is what I did and the problems I had in reverting back to 1.1.2

• Powered down all my VM’s
• Downgraded all the VM’s (Virtual Machine – Downgrade Virtual Machine)
• Uninstalled Fusion 2 beta, using the uninstall script
• Installed Fusion 1.1.2
• Powered on the VM’s 1 by 1

This is where the problems started. All of the VM’s powered on OK but they were having problems with 1 of 2 windows devices. Some of the VM’s now can not install the “Base System Device” These VM’s are working fine and all is good apart from this device. My other VM’s had a problem with device “VMware VMCI Bus Device” the VM’s that had this problem also had problems accessing shared folder.

To fix this problem I did

• Uninstalled VMTools
• Rebooted
• Installed VMTools
• Rebooted

After this I got the same “Base System Device” problem, but shared folders now works fine as does the rest of the VM.

On the good side the Windows Update is now working (SP3 installed) as is launching and saving office files from lotus notes.
On the bad side Copy and Paste between VM and Host no longer works (I can live with this).

Needless to say I will be waiting for the full release of VMware Fusion 2.0 before I upgrade again. At that point I hope all works better.

***** Update*****

Just found out that I am now having problems with my VM’s that have a Bridged network connections. NAT connections are working just fine.