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.

Moving to the Dark Side
Over the last year I have found that I have move more and more to becoming a Mac User up until in December 2007 I finally move from being a Windows user to being full Mac user when I bought my first MacBook Pro. I wanted to share the reason for moving to the Apple world and also share my thoughts on the software and hardware that I now use.

Why Move to a Mac?
In a word VISTA. After using Windows Vista for 9 months and after 9 months of the OS crashing the applications crashing I had finally had enough and decided I had to look at a different option. My first thought’s were to move back to XP this was stopped short when I found that I was unable to get Driver for my new HP Vista Laptop. This is when I decided to get away from Microsoft. I decided to move to Apple as I had already bought an iPod, iPhone and AppleTV in the last year, as I was more than happy with these 3 products it made sense to me to move to a Mac. After a lot of research into the software that I would have available and after a number of email’s with colleagues (thanks David and Doug) I decide to Sell my new HP laptop and buy my new MacBook Pro and I have never looked back.

What Laptop did I buy?
Here are the specs of the MacBook Pro I decided to go with
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz

My Mac Experience
I found that Apple OSX Leopard software was very easy to use from day 1 even for someone who has been using Windows software for over 15 years however I did spend about an hour with a sales guy in the Apple store before I bought the Mac this give me a good basis to start to use the Mac from day 1. One of the reason’s I decided to buy the Mac in December was so I could get used to the OS over the Christmas Break but after a couple of days I was all but there the experience was very easy to get used to. There were a couple of web sites that I found very useful http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/ and http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/ as well as Google for finding the answers to specific questions.

What Software Am I Currently Using
After a couple of months of playing around with different software and trying different options here is what I am currently happy using and why.
VMware Fusion – This is a must for being able to run my on a day to day basis and be able to get access to my work environment. Unfortunately in the businesses world there will always be a need to run a windows PC not only did VMware Fusion allow me to do this but I have never had Windows XP running as well as I do on my Mac.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac – For the same reason, as I would need access to a Windows PC I realized that I would always need to access Microsoft Office Documents after trying a number of different Options including Apples version and some free versions I decided on Office 2008 for the Mac mainly because of formatting problems that I had when going between different software.
Adium – In my opinion the best instant message application around not only did it give me access to all my personal message applications but it also works with sametime allowing be to have all my instant messages in one place. Adium also has a great transcript view for reviewing all conversations.
Firefox – Although Apples Safari is getting better I still prefer Firefox for web browsing.
Handbrake – Handbrake is a great tool for converting DVD’s to M4V or MP4 files this works great if like me you are an AppleTV user. The current version allows you to copy the 5.1 surround sound and lets up edit the Movie Chapter’s.
MetaX – This is a great tool that works along side Handbrake allowing you to insert Meta data into the converted Movie file, you can insert information like description, starts, cover art, show, season, episode, etc.
Skype – Still the best Video messaging app this is great for me to keep in touch with my family back in the UK.

The Verdict
Would I go back to a Microsoft OS? Never Never Never after 15 years of using Microsoft’s OS’s from windows 3.1 right up to Windows Vista I can say that the Mac OSX is by far the best OS I have ever used not only is it faster, I can boot up and have my app’s up and running with in a minuet of powering on, it is far more stable than any Microsoft OS I have ever used I am still amazed that I can open up a web browser at the start of the day and it is still running when I come to turn my Laptop off at the end of the day. Now when I go to use my wife’s XP laptop I am always finding that I am trying to do things the Mac way and not the Windows way as things are much easier this way. My advise to anyone in the market for a new Laptop or PC go to you closes Mac Store and have a play around with there software, yes they are more expensive but they are also a lot better to use.