VMware Fusion Release Notes

Knowledge Base | VMware Fusion Community

Notes on VMware Fusion Version 2.0 RC, Build 113392

Build 113392 is a release candidate build of VMware Fusion.

The release notes contain the following:

• What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 RC
• What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2
• What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1
• Other Beta Documentation
• System Requirements for VMware Fusion
• Before You Begin
• Installation Note
• Tips and Tricks
• Known Issues

VMware Fusion 2.0 is a Free Upgrade for All VMware Fusion 1.x Customers

VMware Fusion 2.0 will be made available free to owners of VMware Fusion 1.x

What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 RC

New and Improved Features in VMware Fusion 2.0

VMware Fusion 2.0 RC has many enhancements and fixes, including:

• Virus Protection
  • To keep your Windows-on-Mac experience as safe as possible, VMware Fusion includes a complimentary 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus to protect your Windows investment
• Fully Localized in Six Languages
  • French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, and Spanish
• User Interface Improvements
  • Snapshot/Rollback window
    • Added a toolbar and re-arranged UI controls in this window to be more discoverable
    • Now shows more information for each snapshot, such as created date and time, and approximate file size
    • Access to AutoProtect settings from the snapshot/rollback window
  • Sharing
    • Finer control and improved wording for shared applications
• Mac OSX Server Guest Improvements
  • OSX server guest creation now uses SCSI as the default disk bus type, not IDE
  • VMware Fusion now ships with a pre-formatted virtual SCSI disk for Mac OS X, so you don't have to go through the disk formatting step when creating the Mac OS X Server guest
  • The VMware Fusion default keyboard and mouse profile has been modified to improve the way keyboard and mouse input is transmitted from the Mac to the virtual machine. For example, typing Command-C on the host now passes Command-C to the guest.
  • Virtual USB keyboard and mouse performance has been improved. USB keyboards and mice now respond with lower latency and use less CPU processing power when a Mac OS X Server virtual machine is idle.
  • VMware Tools installation is improved for Mac OS X Server guest.

Issues Resolved in VMware Fusion 2.0 RC

• 3D acceleration is enabled by default for appropriate operating systems only
• The AutoProtect snapshot limit can be set to fewer than three without producing excess snapshots
• Dragging and dropping a picture from Microsoft Word or WordPad does not cause VMware Fusion to fail
• Dragging and dropping a file from the guest to the host now works correctly
• Windows Easy Install for Windows Vista now works if the user name on the Mac is Administrator
• The Linux Easy Install option now works with CDs as well as ISO images
• Installing Windows Vista SP1 no longer causes reactivation problems in the native Boot Camp partition and the Boot Camp virtual machine
• Logging out in Unity view no longer causes the log out to stall
• Switching to Unity view does not produce duplicates of each running application
• MacBooks and MacBook Airs with the Intel GMA X3100 video card can now have correct display operation in Unity view
• VMware Fusion no longer becomes unresponsive when a virtual machine is restarted in Unity view
• Changing the setting for showing a shared running application in the dock now works in Unity view
• During a restart to Unity view there is now a visual indication that the virtual machine is loading
• Popup windows in Unity view no longer disrupt the operation of Spaces
• Using "Safely Remove Hardware" within a virtual machine no longer interferes with mouse action
• VMware Fusion does not permit attributing the wrong bus type to a virtual hard disk
• Having the VMware Fusion status bar hidden does not cause VMware Fusion to fail when closing a virtual machine window
• VMDKMounter does not display an incorrect message after a successful disk mount
• Removing a default application setting in the preferences window now works correctly
• Sharing the home folder when sharing is enabled now works correctly

What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2

New and Improved Features in VMware Fusion 2.0

VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 has a large number of enhancements, including:

• Multiple Snapshots
  • Save your virtual machine in any number of states, and return to those states at any time
  • Automatically take snapshots at regular intervals with AutoProtect
• File and URL Sharing
  • Share applications between your Mac and your virtual machines
  • Finder can now open your Mac's files directly in Windows applications like Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player
  • VMware Fusion can configure virtual machines to open their files in Mac applications like Preview and iTunes
  • Click on a URL in a virtual machine and open it in your favorite Mac browser, or configure your Mac to open its links in a virtual machine
  • Map key folders in Windows Vista and Windows XP (Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures) to their corresponding Mac folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, and Pictures)
  • Greatly improved reliability of shared folders—now compatible with Microsoft Office and Visual Studio
• Experimental Support for Mac OS X Server Virtual Machines
  • You can create Mac OS X Server 10.5 virtual machines (experimental support). Due to Apple licensing restrictions, the standard edition of Mac OS X 10.5 is not supported in a virtual machine
• Display Improvement
  • Improved 3D support
  • Use 1080p full high definition video in Windows XP or Windows Vista
  • Freely resize your virtual machine’s window and enter and exit Full Screen view while playing games
  • Run Linux applications directly on your Mac’s desktop under Unity view
• UI Improvements
  • The New Virtual Machine Assistant has Linux Easy Install in addition to Windows Easy Install
  • Cut and paste text and styled text up to 4 MB
  • Status icons glow when there is activity
  • A screen shot of the last suspended state of a virtual machine is displayed in Quick Look and Cover Flow
  • You can remap keyboard and mouse input
  • Keyboard compatibility between the Mac and the virtual machine is improved
  • The vmrun command line interface is available for scripting
• Broader Hardware and Software Support
  • VMware Fusion supports Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
  • VMware Fusion supports 64-bit Vista Boot Camp; handles activation for Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007
  • Experimental support for 4-way SMP (note: Windows Vista and Windows XP limit themselves to two CPUs)
• Support for Virtual Hard Disks
  • You can mount the virtual disk of a powered-off Windows virtual machine using VMDKMounter (Mac OS X 10.5 or higher)
  • You now have the ability to resize virtual disks

Issues Resolved in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2

• Keyboard now works (no more "beep") when running Quicken, VPN-1 SecureClient, last.fm, Google Earth, and other software
• No longer fails in Unity view when clicking in the top right corner of a window
• Windows task bar now correctly hidden and shown when entering Unity view
• Unity view now works correctly after taking a snapshot
• Importing a Parallels Desktop virtual machine no longer results in an alert about the virtual machine being locked
• Fixed slowdown and system not responding with "SendToVNet mbuf_dup failed" messages in log in Mac OS X 10.5
• Relaxed false positive warnings about Mac OS X running in VMX non-root operation
• Fixed errors when powering on a virtual machine using Mac OS X 10.6 WWDC developer seed

What's New in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1

New and Improved Features in VMware Fusion 2.0

VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 has a large number of enhancements, including:

• True Multiple Display Support
  • VMware Fusion automatically detects multiple displays by default
  • Each display shows up as a separate, distinct display in virtual machines
  • Handles changes to resolution and display orientation automatically
  • Option to use one or all screens in Full Screen mode
  • Unity windows can be dragged between displays, and will maximize correctly to just the display they're on
  • Correctly handles plugging and unplugging displays
  • 3D supported on primary display when using multiple displays
• Virtual Printing
  • Virtual machines automatically pick up your default Mac printer and all configured Mac printers
• UI Enhancements
  • New high resolution (512x512) icons for VMware Fusion
• New Virtual Machine Library
  • Provides greatly improved management of virtual machines
  • Shows screen shot of last or active states
  • Option to set a virtual machine to be started automatically when VMware Fusion is launched
  • Easily find your virtual machines on your hard drive with the Show in Finder option
  • Menus now act on whichever virtual machine is selected in the Library window
  • You can move old and unused virtual machines to the Trash directly from the Library
• New Settings Editor
  • Provides quick overview of all virtual machine settings
  • Works just like System Preferences
  • Works in Unity, Full Screen, and Single Window views
  • Add existing virtual hard drives to virtual machines and even optionally copy them into the virtual machine bundle
• Shared Folders Improvements
  • Simplified Shared Folders setup in the new Settings editor
  • Shared Folders are easier to discover. New Shared Folders option in Status bar and Virtual Machine menu. Can open all Shared Folders or just a specific Shared Folder in the virtual machine
  • Improved compatibility with Windows applications including QuickBooks and Visual Studio
  • Improved compatibility running Java applications from a Shared Folder
  • Files ending in .alias are no longer treated as aliases
• Integrated VMware Importer
  • Just choose File>Import to import your Parallels Desktop and Virtual PC for Mac virtual machines
  • Outputs a completely new VMware virtual machine based on the input virtual machine
  • Importation process is nondestructive, so you can continue to use the original source virtual machine with the product used to create the source virtual machine
  • Import your Boot Camp partition to a true virtual machine and take advantage of suspend/resume and snapshots
• USB Improvements
  • Allow USB mice/tablets in a virtual machine without custom configuration
  • Faster USB Storage performance
  • USB devices are recognized by type in the Status bar
  • Improved USB robustness including:
  • Canon DR-2580c no longer hangs after scanning documents
  • Now able to sync BlackBerry Pearl devices
  • Able to print from Kodak AiO 5100 in Windows virtual machines
  • Fix USB crash in UsbgHost_CancelPipe (mach_port_extract_member failed)
• Networking Improvements
  • Virtual machines in Bridged networking mode know when your Mac's network connection is available or become unavailable, and will refresh their network address automatically
  • DNS and WINS server pass-through with NAT networking
  • Browse for Bonjour printers with NAT networking
  • Improved performance when using NAT networking
  • Manual option to override the MAC address to any MAC address in VMX settings file, previously limited to VMware-specific MAC addresses
  • Automatically obtain a new DHCP lease when switching between NAT/Bridged networking
  • Windows guests now able to join Active Directory domain with NAT networking if WINS is enabled on Mac OS X
  • Improved compatibility with wireless bridged networking and certain DHCP/routers
• Unity Improvements
  • Virtual machines resume and start directly in Unity view
  • Quit Windows applications from the Dock icon
  • Unity windows now respect the Dock location and won't maximize underneath the Dock
  • Exposé now filters out non-application windows
  • Drag and Drop to overlapped Unity windows now works
  • Cursor not hidden while typing in Unity Mode
  • Handle Unity windows without titles better
• Full Screen Improvements
  • Virtual machines resume and start directly in Full Screen view
  • Full Screen can use one or all displays on the Mac
  • Supports super large displays that are over 2048 (MacBook and MacBook Air) or 4096 (iMac, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro) pixels wide

Issues Resolved in VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1

• VMware Fusion no longer cancels restart or shutdown attempts in Single Window and Full Screen views
• DivX-encoded movies no longer play upside down in Windows Media Player
• Time zone and regional settings are now set to the Mac's settings in Windows Easy Install
• Copy and paste no longer get out of sync between the virtual machine and Mac
• VMI-enabled Ubuntu virtual machine no longer freezes MacBook Pro when resumed from suspend state of lid closure
• No longer shows cursor trails in AutoCAD
• CentOS 5.1 64-bit 2.6.18-53.el5 no longer stalls for about a minute at boot time
• Fixed bora/vmx/main/pollVMX.c:2301 ASSERT on suspend or discard snapshot operations on Linux RHEL 5 virtual machine
• Tools correctly install on Vista Home Premium (Error 1920. Service VMware Tools Service (VMTools) failed to start.)
• Leopard Screen Sharing App now can view virtual machines that export VNC connections
• No longer results in an unrecognized USB device error when the RAM assigned to a virtual machine exceeds 2 GB

Other Beta/RC Documentation

• Getting Started with VMware Fusion (PDF)—a compact guide on installing VMware Fusion and creating virtual machines.
• Using vmrun to Control Virtual Machines (PDF)—a manual for developers and system administrators who want to control virtual machines on various platforms, including VMware Fusion.

System Requirements for VMware Fusion

The minimum system requirements for installing and using VMware Fusion are:

• Any Mac with an Intel 1.5GHz or faster processor
• 1GB of RAM, 2GB recommended
• 400MB of free disk space for VMware Fusion, and at least 5GB of free disk space for each virtual machine
• Mac OS X version 10.4.11 or higher
• Operating system installation media (disk or disk image) for virtual machines

Note: You must have enough memory to run Mac OS X, plus the memory required for each guest operating system and for applications on the Mac and in the virtual machine. See your guest operating system and application documentation for their memory requirements.

Before You Begin

Use the recommended versions of the Mac OS X operating system.
For Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) we recommend version 10.4.11 or higher. For Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) we recommend Mac OS X 10.5.2 or higher.

Installing VMware Fusion 2.0 RC will overwrite earlier versions of the application
It is not possible to have multiple versions of VMware Fusion installed at the same time, so if you install VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 on a machine that already has VMware Fusion 1.x, the Beta version replaces the earlier version. If you want to revert to version 1.x, you will need to reinstall it.

Back up all your virtual machines before installing VMware Fusion 2.0 RC
This is beta software. We advise that you make backups of all your existing virtual machines before starting the installation.

Installation Note: Upgrading Your Virtual Hardware

For best performance after upgrading to VMware Fusion 2.0 RC from VMware Fusion 1.x, for each virtual machine you need to upgrade its virtual hardware and update with the latest VMware Tools.

VMware Fusion 2.0 introduces the latest generation of virtual hardware, including improved 3D performance. To upgrade to VMware Fusion 2.0 and update your VMware Fusion 1.x virtual machine to take advantage of the latest changes, see below.

IMPORTANT: Virtual hardware changes are like upgrading the motherboard of a physical PC. In some cases, Microsoft Windows may ask you to reactivate your copy of Windows. If this is an issue for you, do not upgrade your virtual hardware to the latest version.

1. Before installing VMware Fusion 2.0, launch VMware Fusion 1.x
2. Resume your virtual machine and shut it down cleanly
3. Quit VMware Fusion 1.x
4. Install the VMware Fusion 2.0 upgrade
5. Launch VMware Fusion 2.0, select the virtual machine and choose Upgrade Virtual Hardware in the Virtual Machines menu
6. Start your virtual machine
7. If the virtual machine was created with VMware Fusion 1.0 (not beta) or later, it should offer to update tools on power on. If not, update VMware Tools manually by going to Update VMware Tools in the Virtual Machine menu
8. Restart the virtual machine after tools installation is complete

Tips and Tricks

Tips on using the Mac keyboard
If you are unfamiliar with Mac keyboards, the following tips will help you send keystrokes that you know from PC keyboards to virtual machines:

• To send the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keystroke combination to a virtual machine, do one of the following:
• From the Virtual Machine menu, select Send Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
• If you are using an external PC keyboard, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
• On a full-sized Mac keyboard, press Control-Option-. The (Forward Delete) key is below the Help key.
• On a Mac laptop keyboard, press Fn-Ctrl-Option-Delete.
• The delete key on Apple keyboards is actually the backspace key to all other operating systems. To send the Del key to a virtual machine:
• On a MacBook or MacBook Pro keyboard, press Fn-Delete.
• On a full-sized Mac keyboard, press . The (Forward Delete) key is below the Help key.
• Mac keyboards do not have an obvious Insert key. To send the Insert key to a virtual machine:
• On a MacBook or MacBook Pro keyboard, press Fn-M.
• On a full-sized Mac keyboard, press the Help key.
• Mac keyboards do not have a PRINT SCREEN key. To send the PRINT SCREEN key to a virtual machine, on a full-sized Mac keyboard, press F13.


• U.S. Mac keyboards do not have an AltGr key. To send the AltGr key to a virtual machine, on a full-sized Mac keyboard, press the right Option key.
  AltGr is supported on European MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards. The Enter key next to the right Command key (otherwise known as the numeric pad Enter key) is remapped to AltGr on Mac laptops.

Known Issues with VMware Fusion

• Do not open Google Earth in a virtual machine.
  Launching Google Earth in a virtual machine causes the application to fail.



• Default applications are not recognized for handling URLs within Microsoft Office in the virtual machine.
  If you have Microsoft Office installed in a Windows XP virtual machine, and have set a browser on the host to handle URLs, when you click on a link in an Office application the link opens in the virtual machine in Internet Explorer, not in the browser on the host. This happens when Internet Explorer is the default browser in the virtual machine. It should get supplanted by the VMware Fusion default application, but does not.
  
  To work around this problem:
  1. Download a third-party Web browser, like Firefox, and install it into the virtual machine
  2. Set it as the default Web browser in the virtual machine
  3. In the VMware Fusion preferences, go to the Default Applications panel, disable and then re-enable the applications for handling the URLs
  With Internet Explorer no longer being the default Web browser in the virtual machine, the default application in the host should now work.



• QuickTime video might not work in Full Screen view.
  Occasionally, on Windows guests, when you try to play a QuickTime video in Full Screen view, you see only a black screen.



• Downloading files with Safari in a Mac OS X Server virtual machine might fail when using NAT as networking type.
  Using NAT as networking type for a Mac OS X Server virtual machine might result in Safari downloads timing out. 'This is a bug in Safari. This does not happen with scp or curl. Workaround: For downloading in Safari, select Bridged for your networking type to connect directly to the physical network. Choose Virtual Machine > Settings, select Network, and select Bridged on the Network panel.



• Viewports are not updated in 3ds Max 2009.
  Viewports do not display or refresh properly. To prevent this problem, do the following.
  1. Open 3ds Max, go to Customize > Preferences > Viewports > Configure Driver
  2. Deselect Use Incremental Scene Updates and click OK.


• Disable screen saver and sleep before using Unity view in Ubuntu or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  Having a screen saver or sleep enabled when in Unity view in these two operating systems results in the virtual machine powering off at the idle time out.



• Do not enter Unity view if the User Account Control confirmation window is displayed.
  In a Microsoft Vista virtual machine, do not enter Unity view while the User Account Control (UAC) confirmation window is open. If you do, the resolution does not adjust correctly and your windows will be able only to move within an area as big as the virtual machine window before entering Unity view. The workaround is to exit and reenter Unity view.



• If a proxy application is no longer available in a virtual machine, it might still be assigned to open files or URL types on the host Mac.
  If you uninstall an application in the virtual machine that has been assigned a role in the host, attempting to launch the proxy application from the host can power on the virtual machine, but VMware Fusion does not display an alert that the application is not available. If you revert to a snapshot of the virtual machine that doesn't have the application, the same thing happens. Uninstalling VMware Tools might have this result as well.



• Some Linux applications do not start from a virtual machine's Applications menu.
  When in Unity view on a Linux guest you might not be able to start some applications from a virtual machine's Applications menu on the host. For some applications, the application might show a fatal error at startup and for others, the application does not start.
  
  Workaround: Do one of the following:
  • On Open SUSE guests, use a text editor to open the file named /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.common. Search for and delete the block of lines starting with Beginning of the block added by the VMware software and ending with End of the block added by the VMware software.
  • On Debian and Ubuntu guests, find and delete the file named /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99-vmware-vmware_user (or similar).
  • If you are using xdm, use a text editor to open the files named xdm-config in /etc/X11/xdm, /usr/lib/X11/xdm, /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm, and so on. Search for and delete the block of lines starting with Beginning of the block added by the VMware software and ending with End of the block added by the VMware software.


• Moving the menu bar to another display while using multiple displays in Full Screen view might result in the virtual machine window going blank.
  When you are using very large topologies, greater than 4096 x 4096, changing the location of the menu bar from one display to another can stop the virtual machine window from being rendered. Switching to Single Window view and back enables the virtual machine to recover, as can doing a suspend and resume of the guest.



• Guest operating system does not change to fit resized virtual machine window.
  On Windows 95 and Windows 98 guests, resizing the virtual machine's window does not cause the guest operating system to adjust its resolution to fit unless you use the guest's Display Properties settings to change the screen resolution to a higher value than 640 X 480.



• Using "Safely Remove Hardware" for an HID USB device sometimes results in disconnecting the USB Controller.
  In some cases, using the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the Windows taskbar's notification area to disconnect a USB device can cause the entire USB Controller and all other devices attached to that USB Controller to be removed. If this happens, shut down your virtual machine, go to the USB panel of the Virtual Machine settings window and configure the virtual machine to add back the removed controller.



• Manually connect USB devices when you use Unity view.
  The Automatically connect USB Devices setting does not apply to a virtual machine in Unity view, by design. To connect a USB device to a virtual machine in Unity view, choose Virtual Machine > USB in the VMware Fusion menu for that virtual machine, and choose the USB device to connect.



• Working offline messages and synchronization error messages can appear if mirrored folders is enabled.
  Using mirrored folders might, in some cases, cause Windows to incorrectly view a folder as an inaccessible network share and assume it is offline. This results in failed attempts to synchronize data or messages about no longer being connected to a drive.
  
  Workaround: Open a Windows Explorer window, Choose Tools > Folder Options and click the Offline Files tab. Deselect Enable Offline Files and restart the virtual machine.



• With a shared file, moving or copying it to its existing location by a different path can cause data loss.
  If a file is located in a shared or mirrored folder, and you move or copy it to the same location but accessed through a different path, this results in the file being lost. An example of where this could happen is if the Desktop is mirrored at the same time as the Mac home folder is shared, and you attempt to move or copy a file from the desktop to the shared home folder/Desktop directory. This causes the file to overwrite itself with garbage content. Because of this potential problem, VMware Fusion attempts to disable shared folders that create this risk. If a shared folder is automatically disabled, do not re-enable it unless you know what you're doing. Drag-and-drop is also disabled for files that are located in shared or mirrored folders. Moving, copying, or dragging and dropping files that are not located in shared or mirrored folders is not affected by this problem.



• 3DMark fails to run with 3DMark error: "DirectX error message . . ."
  If the resolution of a display mode in a virtual machine is larger than that of the Mac, VMware Fusion resizes the window down to fit in the Mac display. This can cause an error message when you open 3DMark, although if you then quit and reopen 3DMark it launches fine. If you use 3DMark, have a host resolution that is larger than the display mode being set by any of the 3DMarks.



• Mac OS X bug causes Mac to lock up under heavy I/O activity.
  In some cases your Mac can become unresponsive after heavy I/O activity. This is an acknowledged Apple bug; Apple plans to include the fix in Mac OS X 10.5.5.



• Install Novell Linux Desktop 9 using text mode only.
  Do not use the graphical installation program to install Novell Linux Desktop 9. This fails. When installing Novell Linux Desktop 9, use the text mode.



• Automatic installation of VMware Tools does not happen after using Linux Easy Install for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2
  Choose Install VMware Tools from the Virtual Machine menu to start a manual installation of VMware Tools.



• Oversaturated colors in Age of Empires III.
  In Age of Empires III on a virtual machine, the colors of certain elements in the window might be oversaturated, in some cases going to white.
  
  To work around this problem:
  1. In Age of Empires III, choose Help & Tools > Option > Graphics Options
  2. Deselect Bloom Effect and click OK


• Powering on the virtual machine while copying an existing virtual hard disk can cause VMware Fusion to fail.
  If you are adding a new hard disk to a virtual machine by copying an existing virtual hard disk, do not power on the virtual machine before the process is completed.



• Printing cannot be enabled if the virtual machine has more than one serial port configured already.
  If you have already added two or more serial ports to a virtual machine, you cannot enable a printer on the Printers panel of the VMware Fusion Settings window.


• Install Red Hat Linux 7.0 using text mode only.
  Do not use the graphical, mouse-based installation program to install Red Hat Linux 7.0. This can fail into a black screen. When installing Red Hat Linux 7.0, use the text mode for installation.



• VMDKMounter does not mount partitioned dynamic disk VMDK.



• VMDKMounter mounts NTFS hard disks as read-only.
  VMDKMounter depends on the Mac OS X file system support to mount virtual disk volumes. By default, Mac OS X comes with read-write support for FAT and HFS+ formatted volumes, and read-only support for NTFS formatted volumes.
  
  To add read-write support for NTFS volumes, you can install NTFS-3G separately. Note that installing NTFS-3G may prevent Startup Disk from recognizing your Boot Camp partition, as well as cause files with non-English names to be unreadable.
  
  If you do install NTFS-3G, you can boot into Boot Camp: you will need to hold down the Option key at startup.



• Dragging an RTF file from the guest to Microsoft Word 2008 in the host causes the Word application to close unexpectedly.
  Avoid dragging and dropping RTF files onto Word in the host. If you drag the file onto Word again after restarting the application, however, the file will be able to be opened.



• Logging in after having turned off mirroring for the Desktop folder when logged off produces an alert.
  This happens if you have logged out of the current user account while mirrored Desktop was enabled, but then turned off mirroring for the Desktop while logged out. Changing the setting results, when logging back in, in an alert saying the location of the folder can't be found. When you click OK, however, the settings are fixed and things will work as expected.



• Incorrect security flaw message appears when you do something with shared folders.
  In Windows XP with certain versions of Internet Explorer 6, you might see a "This page has an unspecified potential security flaw" message when you navigate between certain shared folders or drag and drop a file or folder onto a mirrored folder. The correct dialog box for these instances should contain a "copy/move from this zone" query. Internet Explorer 7 fixes this problem, so the recommendation is to upgrade to it.



• Default browser set in a virtual machine prevents any other browser from being a choice in default applications.
  In certain cases, having a particular application set as your default browser prevents other browser applications from being able to be seen as a choice for handling any of the common protocols, like http, https, ftp, and so on.



• The VMware Fusion menu bar in Full Screen view might stop responding after you choose Help.
  In certain cases, the VMware Fusion menu bar might cease to work in Full Screen view. This happens if you choose Help. Use the keyboard shortcut Control-Command-Return to exit Full Screen view, after which you can return to Full Screen view with the menu working. You can also use Command-Tab to switch to another application, after which the VMware Fusion menu becomes responsive although still in Full Screen view.



• Launching iTunes results in a message saying iTunes cannot be found.
  Having Documents selected to be a mirrored folder on the Sharing panel of the Settings window can prevent iTunes from running in some cases. If you mirror the Music folder in addition to Documents, or unselect Documents and mirror Music only, iTunes will launch.



• Internet Explorer in Vista virtual machine can't find the path to a file on the Mac host.
  If you attempt to open an HTML file on the Mac host using Internet Explorer 7 in a Vista guest (either by setting the file to open with Internet Explorer as a shared application or by double-clicking on the file in a shared folder from the virtual machine), Internet Explorer launches, but displays an alert saying it can't find the path to the file. This is the result of the Vista/Internet Explorer default security settings. To make opening the file work, "Protected Mode" must be disabled for the local intranet zone, and \\.host needs to be added to the list of safe sites.
  
  Workaround:
  
  1. Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options.
  2. Click the Security tab and select the Local intranet zone (not Internet).
  3. Click Sites, then Advanced, type \\.host and click Add, then Close and OK.
  4. Back in the Local intranet settings, deselect Enable Protected Mode.
  5. Click OK, and accept the warning, "The current security settings will put your computer at risk," by clicking OK again.
  6. Close Internet Explorer to apply the change.
  
  Internet Explorer will now open files from \\.host correctly.



• VMware Fusion default applications are not pre-set.
  On the Default Applications pane of the VMware Fusion Preferences window you can set applications from the Mac or the virtual machines to use to open different categories of URLs. Because the handlers are not pre-set, the Default Applications pane is empty when you first go it except for the add (+ button. Click on the button and from the pop-up menu choose a URL category to which to assign an application.



• A designated shared application does not launch in a powered off virtual machine.
  If a virtual machine is powered off and it contains an application used by other virtual machines or the host as the designated shared application for opening files or URLs, when you open one of those files or URLs, the virtual machine will resume, but the application will not launch automatically. However, once the virtual machine is running, trying to open the files or URLs again works.



• Cannot drag and drop a file directly to the host from a network drive in Ubuntu.
  In Ubuntu 7.04 and Ubuntu 7.10, you can't drag and drop a file directly from a network drive in your virtual machine to your Mac. The workaround is to drop the file on your Ubuntu desktop, then drag and drop it to the Mac.



• Shared Folders permissions might be too restrictive in Linux and Mac OS X Server guests.
  These problems might consist of not getting write access, or getting an "access denied" message. The uid and gid of the guest needs to match that of the host. You get the uid and gid of your Mac host by opening Terminal and running id.
  
  Workaround for Linux: Edit the /etc/fstab entry for the shared folder and add uid=XXX,gid=YYY to the options column, where XXX and YYY are the uid and gid to be used for the guest user.
  
  Workaround for Mac OS X Server:
  1. Go to /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/services.sh
  2. Modify the line mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ '/Volumes/Shared Folders' to look like
     mount -t vmhgfs -o uid= -o gid= .host:/ '/Volumes/Shared Folders'
     where XXX and YYY are the uid and gid to be used for the guest user.


• Cannot install VMware Tools in a Mac OS X Server virtual machine if there is a CD already connected.
  Having a CD connected to the virtual machine interferes with VMware Fusion being able to install VMware Tools. Before you select Install VMware Tools, make the Mac OS X Server guest eject all CDs, for example by drag-and-dropping the CD icons on your guest desktop to the guest Trash icon.



• Cannot run an executable if it is in a shared folder in a Mac OS X Server virtual machine.



• Some games with SecurROM copy protection might refuse to install with VMware Fusion.



• Importing a Boot Camp partition for the first time can result in it getting stuck in the processing stage the first time you start it up.
  The Boot Camp partition shows up in the Virtual Machine Library, where you can elect to import it to a VMware Fusion virtual machine. However, after importing it, if you start the Boot Camp partition by clicking the play icon next to it in the Library, the process becomes stuck in the Preparing your virtual machine stage.
  
  Workaround: Force quit Fusion. Delete the folder ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Helper. Restart Fusion.
  In the Virtual Machine Library the Boot Camp partition is shown and you can click the play button. This time the processing dialog box appears, asks for your password, completes the processing in a timely fashion, and the Boot Camp virtual machine powers on.



• Flat Hard-Disk Image Cannot Be Imported.
  VMware Importer does not import Virtual PC virtual machines with any flat hard-disk images. If you attempt to import such a virtual machine, VMware Importer reports that the virtual disk is corrupt.



• Reconfiguring the CPUs on an imported virtual machine results in an error.
  Some virtual machines imported from Microsoft Virtual PC or Parallels Desktop for Mac will not work with more than one CPU, so don't customize the import by changing the Processor configuration to two. Changing the CPU setting to two virtual processors while importing a virtual machine results in an error when you start up the virtual machine. You see the message, "The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system. You will need to power off or reset the virtual machine at this time." If you get this error, go to the Settings pane and change the Processors setting back to one virtual processor.



• Enabling or disabling printers for a running virtual machine does not take effect immediately.
  Selecting or deselecting the Enabled check box on the Printers sheet in Settings does not add or remove printers if the virtual machine is running. To change the setting for printers and have it take effect, you must power off the operating system in the virtual machine, make the change, and power the operating system back on.



• Overlapping windows have redraw issues in Exposé.
  Overlapping windows in Exposé have redraw issues with only the top most non-overlapping windows showing correctly.



• Screens moved in Unity view do not redraw properly.
  When using a Mac display layout greater than 2048 pixels wide or high (MacBook Air, MacBook, Mac Mini), or 4096 pixels wide or high (other Macs), shaped Unity windows may not correctly redraw when dragged very far to the right or downwards.
  
  To work around this issue, resize the shaped Unity window after dragging it.



• Uninstall, install, or upgrade VMware Tools only while Fusion is set to Single Window view.
  Due to possible temporary display corruptions, it is not recommended to uninstall, install, or upgrade VMware Tools in a virtual machine while it is set to Unity view, or Full Screen view on a system with several displays.
  
  If you do find yourself in this situation, press Cmd-Ctrl-U to exit to Single Window view from Unity view, or Cmd-Ctrl-Return to exit to Single Window view from Full Screen view.



• For networking to work properly in your virtual machines, reboot your Mac after upgrading its operating system, or after using the Migration Assistant.
  After upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) to Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), you must to reboot your Mac for networking to work properly in virtual machines running under VMware Fusion. Similarly, after using Apple's Migration Assistant to move your data and applications from one Mac to another, you will need to reboot the new Mac for networking to work properly in virtual machines running under VMware Fusion.



• Conflict in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) between VMware Fusion and anti-virus software can cause memory corruption.
  Running a virtual machine in VMware Fusion creates a .vmem file either inside the virtual machine's package, or in /tmp/vmware-. If you are running Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger), and the Norton AntiVirus' Auto-Protect feature scans the .vmem file while the virtual machine is running, host memory corruption can occur. The problem described here has been reproduced with Norton AntiVirus, but it is possible that the problem could occur with other anti-virus or backup software as well.
  
  Upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to avoid this problem altogether.
  
  To prevent this conflict from occurring in Mac OS X 10.4, exclude both the Virtual Machines folder and the /tmp/vmware-<YourUserName> folder from the Norton AntiVirus SafeZones (System Preferences > Norton Auto-Protect > Safe Zones > Everywhere EXCEPT in).
  
  A typical symptom of this problem is that when you try to suspend the virtual machine, it gets stuck, and VMware Fusion can no longer run virtual machines. To recover from that situation:
  1. Shut down the host operating system as soon as possible and restart it.
  2. Prevent the conflict from occurring as described above.
  3. Discard the .vmss file for the affected virtual machine. Note: Whatever state was saved in the last suspend is lost.
  4. Boot up the virtual machine.


• No audio can be heard in virtual machines created with some very old guest operating systems.
  Old operating systems, such as DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95, may not have drivers for the virtual ES1371 sound device that Fusion presents. Other VMware products optionally present a Sound Blaster 16 device for these guests, but Fusion does not have this capability. This clarification also applies to previous versions of VMware Fusion.



• Creating a new virtual machine with Solaris 10 might fail if there is insufficient memory.
  Before creating a new virtual machine with Solaris 10 as its guest operating system, ensure that you have enough memory assigned to the virtual machine to complete the process. You need 490MB and an additional 50MB for each NIC. For instance, if you were creating a virtual machine with two NICs, you would need to assign a minimum of 590MB to have a successful virtual machine creation.



• Turbolinux 10 Server does not reboot automatically after installation in a virtual machine.
  At the end of the installation of Turbolinux 10 Server in a virtual machine, when you click Finish the system does not reboot and the screen becomes black. This results from a problem Turbolinux has switching from X to VGA. Workaround: Press the Enter key to continue with the reboot.



• Microsoft Money 2006 does not update financial information over the internet if its data file is stored on a Shared Folder.
  This problem does not occur with Microsoft Money 2008. For Microsoft Money 2006, there are two workarounds: 1) Store the Microsoft Money file in the virtual disk of the virtual machine; or 2) Enable Windows File Sharing on your Mac's System Preferences, share the folder that contains your Microsoft Money data file, and mount the Mac's network share in the virtual machine to access it.



• Using the Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine can, in a few rare instances, result in a 07B failure when the virtual machine is booted.
  If this happens, boot into Boot Camp natively, immediately hold down F8 and select boot into last known good state. This will restore the functionality of your Boot Camp partition only in native mode.
  To help VMware better understand what happens in this case, please file a support incident that includes your Boot Camp logs. The logs can be found in your home folder as the file
  ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Helper/naos-1.0.vmwarevm/vmware.log
  Please note that the folder naos-1.0.vmwarevm is a package. If you are opening it with Finder, right-click the icon and select Show Package Contents.



• Some file systems, such as FAT and UFS, are unable to support very large files.
  If you are creating a virtual machine that will be used in a hard drive with a file system that does not support very large files, select the New Virtual Machine Assistant option Split disk into 2GB files. This option is in Advanced disk options, in the Virtual Hard Disk panel of the New Virtual Machine Assistant.



• Applications that use Multiple Document Interface (MDI), such as Microsoft Excel, might not display correctly in Unity view.



• Unity view is not supported when more than one user is logged in to Windows.
  Fast User Switching is not compatible with Unity view.



• In Windows virtual machines, if you uninstall the VMware pointing device driver, and then Control-click or right-click to select an option from an application displayed in Unity view, the virtual machine might quit unexpectedly.
  This problem can occur if you uninstall the VMware pointing device in My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager, and then, in a virtual machine application window displayed in Unity view, Control-click or right-click and select any option, for example, Properties.



• When you cancel a drag-and-drop operation between the Mac host and a virtual machine, it may take several seconds before another drag-and-drop operation is possible.
  The virtual machine guest operating system can require several seconds to cancel a drag-and-drop operation. When you attempt a drag-and-drop operation, a plus sign (+) should appear on the file or folder you are dragging and dropping. If the plus sign does not appear, the virtual machine could be processing a prior operation. Wait a few seconds and try again.



• In rare circumstances, a virtual machine can fail to detect any bootable CD in the CD/DVD drive, including the Windows XP installation CD.
  To work around this problem, try the following:
  1. In the virtual machine, open Virtual Machine > Settings > Removable Devices > CD/DVD.
  2. Change the setting from Automatically detect physical CD/DVD drive to Specify physical CD/DVD drive, and select cdrom0.
  3. Click OK.


• In virtual machines running Linux distributions with kernel versions lower than 2.4, VMware Fusion does not support drag and drop operations between the virtual machine and the host.



• If you are installing Microsoft Windows Vista from multiple installation disks, Windows Easy Install does not work.
  To install Vista from multiple installation disks, use the standard installation: in the New Virtual Machine Assistant, when the Windows Easy Install panel is displayed, deselect Use Easy Install and click Continue to proceed with the standard installation.



• Powering on multiple virtual machines (whose combined memory allocation exceeds that of the host physical system) can slow the system.
  If the memory allocated to running virtual machines approaches or exceeds the physical memory available on the host, the system can become very slow. This can happen with one or more virtual machines running. Make sure to only power on virtual machines that have memory allocations that your host machine can handle. If you encounter this problem, close one or more virtual machines. You might also consider reducing the memory allocation of some of your virtual machines (Virtual Machine > Settings > System Hardware > Memory).



• On Macs with more than one CD-ROM drive (internal or external), physical CD-ROM drives cannot be moved between running virtual machines.
  This occurs when two or more virtual machines are powered on, and one of the physical CD-ROM drive is connected to one of the powered-on virtual machines. If you disconnect the physical CD-ROM drive from the virtual machine, and then attempt to connect the CD-ROM drive to one of the other powered-on virtual machines, the connection fails.
  
  To work around this problem, reset the virtual machines.



• Virtual machines stored on drives formatted with FAT32 may crash in VMware Fusion.
  This problem is accompanied by the error message: Argument list too long.
  Testing suggests that this problem may indicate a corrupted disk.



• Migrating Linux virtual machines between Intel and AMD hosts.
  VMware recommends you do not migrate a Linux virtual machine between hosts when one host is running on an AMD processor and the other is running on an Intel processor.
  
  During installation, many distributions of Linux choose a kernel that is optimized for the specific processor on which it is being installed, and some distributions install a generic kernel by default, but provide architecture-specific kernels that the user can choose to install. The kernel might contain instructions that are available only on that processor. These instructions can have adverse effects when run on a host with the wrong type of processor.



• For 64-bit SUSE Linux versions lower than 10.1, VMware virtual machines support the X graphical windows system only if you have installed VMware Tools in the virtual machine.



• Fixing sound problems in virtual machines running Vista 32-bit edition
  When you install Microsoft Vista 32-bit edition in a VMware Fusion virtual machine, there is no sound output. To correct this problem, run Windows Update to update the sound driver from within Vista.
  
  To update the sound driver in a VMware Fusion virtual machine running Windows Vista 32-bit edition:
  1. In the virtual machine, from the Windows start menu, right-click Computer and select Properties.
  2. In the left pane, under Tasks, select Device Manager.
  3. When prompted for your permission to continue, click Continue.
     Windows displays the Device Manager.
  4. Right-click the Multimedia Sound Adapter with a warning symbol (indicating that there is no driver) and select Update Driver Software.
  5. At the prompt How do you want to search for driver software?, select Search automatically for updated driver software.
     Windows finds and installs the appropriate driver for your virtual sound card.
  6. When you are prompted to restart, click Restart Now.
  Sound should now work in your Microsoft Vista 32-bit virtual machine.


• Sound does not work in virtual machines running Windows 2003 Server 64-bit Enterprise Edition R2.
  To enable sound in a virtual machine running Windows 2003 Server 64-bit Enterprise Edition R2, you must enable the Windows Audio Service: open the Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel. Windows prompts you to enable the audio device. When you enable the device, Windows reboots. Sound should now work in the virtual machine.