VMware had announced the availability of VMware Fusion 2.0 Public Beta 1.
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 brings support for multiple displays, tools for even easier switching to VMware Fusion, experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration, and more:
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
When released, VMware Fusion 2.0 will be a free downloadable upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x users, as a sincere thank you to VMware Fusion early adopters.
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 is available as a free download.
More info here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Richard” for the heads up.]
Nice! Glad I used the trade-up rebate and dumped Parallels.
I prefer Fusion over Parallels, having used Parallels for several months before making the switch to Fusion in order to get 64-bit guest OS support.
Damn nice to give a free upgrade to V1 customers.
would be nice if they improved unity when working with spaces. That’s kind of a disaster right now.
My experience with Fusion is limited, but I gotta say that using Parallels with Spaces is sweet. Very slick, very convenient. Overall, I’d say we are fortunate to have two strong virtualization products — the competition is making both better.
Ok, curious to hear from some of you VMWare guys and gals about what makes you prefer it to Parallels. I have been using Parallels (primarily for Lotus Notes…blech) for about a year now, but am open to switching if I can be made to understand what adavantage(s) VMWare offers.
I will say, at least one score for Parallels is that it doesn’t have any issues working with Spaces, as hairbo above implied being the case with VMWare.
“Ok, curious to hear from some of you VMWare guys and gals about what makes you prefer it to Parallels.”
Hoops, lack of.
I tried them both. Parallels messed me about when I tried to download it and then crashed when I installed it. At the time, Fusion was faster and also comes from a more experienced company in virtualisation. Oh, and the Fusion logo is better.
It’s all much of a muchness anyway – even when I made my choice. There’s very little difference between them.
I didn’t know which to get. Tossed a dice and got VMWare.
I own both. I prefer Fusion. Parallels lost me when one of their upgrades did not recognize some Linux VM’s I made with an older version. I refuse to lose hours of work over a minor upgrade. An incompatibility that was not documented, BTW.
Just my $0.02
What do I need something like this or Parallels for? I can run Windows on my Dell just fine.
I suppose it’s good for you MAC sheep to try a real world operating system like Windows so maybe you’ll become comfortable making switch from your little girly toy MACs to the robust, secure Windows platform. You’re gonna love it.
Your potential. Our passion.™
I have both VMware Fusion (bought very early) and also Parallels. Parallels sucks feature wise compared to VMware.
I am using VMware Fusion 1.0 and while Unity is pretty cool, I barely touch Windows. Come on VMware, make Unity work with Linux. I’ve got my Linux VM open daily and would love to run individual apps in Unity like I can Windows apps.
I use Fusion because I run a lot of ESX servers (and have since ESX 1.5.1) and am very familiar with how VMware does things.
MW: you have the “freedom” to choose which you want to use
It’s nice to see such robust competition, but my brain hurts to just think about how in the world to implement everything that they have.
I have VMware, and my main reasons for purchasing it over Parallels were: (1) online comparisons in favor of VMware; (2) feedback from friends who had purchased Parallels and wished they had VMware; (3) I downloaded the Parallels demo, but it refused to install and run … that was the last straw.
I’m looking forward to this 2.0 upgrade.
Nice, really nice, you don’t see that many free upgrades anymore.
I am glad I made the switch.
Fusion can not hold a candle to Parallels – Yes Parallels had some issues on stability but those have long been solved. From a feature and performance perspective – VMware’s Mac product is a joke!
That said I will take a look at 2.0 beta and see if it is worth re-installing on my Macs.
What sold me on VMWare over Parallels was that it’s memory requirements were smaller, at least at the time. Also, VMWare has been in the virtualization game for a very long time. And finally, an IT friend has used both, and much prefers VMWare to Parallels. Apparently, installation and management is much cleaner in VMWare–Parallels (at least in the past) installed these bizarre virtual network connections that VMware does not need.
Aside from the spaces/unity issue, VMWare has been a rock for me. I use it literally 40 hours a week, and have never had a problem.
I started with Parallels before Fusion 1 got into beta, it’s ok but on Startup or serious actions in the VM the host stops responding. When I got into the Fusion Beta it didn’t have that problem and seemed to run faster then Parallels even with all the debug code enabled, when Fusion got out of beta I bought it and haven’t looked back. I haven’t tried the latest version of Parallels so I don’t know how well it works, but I’m comfortable with Fusion, I’ve used their products (on Win and Linux) in the past and like it.
Interesting how virtualization technology has the ability to do for Windows what the entire PC industry, including Microsoft, couldn’t — improve it.
Traders running Mac Pros with six or eight displays will be happy.
Parallels and VMWare is great for running a particular Windows app like mail or browsing inside a window but you can forget about running any graphics-intensive software like modeling or gaming. For that, booting into Windows via Boot Camp is the only way to go; under Boot Camp, ALL of your computer’s resources are devoted to the task at hand and not shared as is the case with VM or Parallels. Boot Camp is free too.
Parallels cannot use more than 64 MB of video RAM. That sucks!
Under Boot Camp however, I am able to allocate 3 of the 4 GBs of RAM and all 256 MBs of video RAM to Windows. XP cannot address 4 GB of RAM… how juvenile.
Windows XP is such a shitty OS. Desktop clutter can be overwhelming and Windows maintenance becomes a full-time housekeeping job.
Of all that Windows has to offer, there is only one feature that has proven to be innovative: a complete system restore at any point on the calendar. That this feature was driven by necessity and not by design is obvious and comes in real handy when a recent software install renders everything unusable.
Running Windows and Leopard side-by-side provides an extraordinary contrast of talent between Apple’s scientists and Microsoft’s… and Vista evens my conviction…
Windows sucks! And for the first time in my life, I can say that with some authority now.
Is Parallels able to use multiple cores/processors? Fusion does, but does Fusion give an option to limit it to just 1 core/processor?
The choice was very simple for me. QNX4 works as a guest OS under Fusion but not Parallels. I was even able to use VMware Importer to convert an old VirtualPC VM that I used to run QNX on my old PowerBook G4. Yes, I feel like I’ve stepped through a wormhole into 1997 every time I use QNX, but I still need it occasionally.
Excellent… (about the free upgrade for 1.x customers). WMware Fusion is outstanding. I especially like the importer feature, which let me keep using the Windows license I had purchased when I bought Microsoft’s Virtual PC.
> Is Parallels able to use multiple cores/processors? Fusion does, but does Fusion give an option to limit it to just 1 core/processor?
There is a setting to use one or multiple processors, for each virtual machine you set up. The default setting is to use one processor.
and I prefer VMWare. We use VMWare a lot at work and I can just start using the VMs, plus I mess around a lot with Linuxes and VMWare has better Linux support, especially when it comes to USB device support, external hard drives, network connectors, etc.