Category Archives: VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion

Copy/Paste Bug With VMware Fusion

  1. In Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac connect to a PC (I tried Win7 and Win Server 2003 R2).
  2. In RDC’s OS, open Notepad.exe and type a phrase; select your phrase; and copy it.
  3. Switch to VMware Fusion and paste your phrase. This will not work.
  4. Go to Apple Mail on the Mac and paste your phrase in a new email. This works.
  5. Workaround: After pasting the phrase into Apple Mail, select the phrase and copy it again. You can now paste it successfully into VMware Fusion.

Details:

  • Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac Version 2.1.0 (100825)
  • VMware Fusion Version 4.0.2 (491587)
  • VMware Tools for Windows Version 8.8.0, build-465068
  • Guest OS: Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3
VMware Fusion, Windows

Windows 7 in Fusion: The 64/32-Bit Question

I created a Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit VM and a 64-bit VM.  I wanted to see which provides better performance.  Since VMware Tools aren’t ready I treaded lightly with my tests.  Other caveats:  VMware Fusion does not support Windows 7 yet.  These are PassMark tests and not real world tests.  I didn’t run endless tests – just a handful.  Your milage may vary (greatly!).  The performance is based on Win7 32-bit (32/32).  The results are:

Win7 64-bit Running PassMark 65-bit (64/64)

29% faster on CPU
178% faster on 2D graphics
36% faster on Memory
19% slower on disk operations

Win7 64-bit Running PassMark 32-bit (64/32)

11% faster on CPU
13% faster on 2D graphics
11% faster on Memory
35% faster on disk operations

I was perplexed on the 64/64 disk performance being slower than the baseline and re-ran the test a handful of times and got similar results.  64/64 2D graphic results were impressive but not a driving factor for me.  For CPU and Memory 64/64 showed a nice bump over 32/32 and even 64/32.  In the end, the issue of whether to move to 64-bit Windows 7 is moot for me – the driver I need is only available in 32-bit so I’ll be running 32/32.

Here are all the versions used in the testing:

VMware Fusion Version 2.0.5 (173382)
Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise [Version 6.1.7600]
VMware Tools for Windows Version 7.9.6. build-173382
PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 (1010) WIN32
PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 (1018) WIN64

Fedora 10, Mac OS X, VMware Fusion

Fusion Bridging Broke After Software Update

After installing a couple of Mac OS X 10.5.6 Software Updates today:

  • Security Update 2009-001
  • Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 3

I received “The network bridge on device /dev/vmnet0 is not running.” error in VMware Fusion v2.0.2 (147997) when I tried to restore my Fedora 10 VM.  The Google search produced some interesting results but nothing worked.  I reinstalled Fusion and the dialog went away but network bridging still did not work.  I then uninstalled and then installed Fusion and the same result.  I rebooted my XP VM and it doesn’t have network connectivity either.

What finally did work was to uninstall Fusion and follow the manual uninstall procedures here.  Then after a clean install network bridging is working again.