Apple Mac HQ

Mac toting Windows junkies are rejoicing today. One of the two powerhouses in Mac virtualization software released a major upgrade today. VMware Fusion 2.0 was released early this morning. Fusion 2.0 is a free upgrade for existing Fusion owners!

So what’s new in Fusion 2.0? For starters, a lot. You can see the entire list here. What’s new and notable?

• Driver-less Printing
• Numerous UI Enhancements
• OS X Server VM Support
• AutoProtect (automatically take snapshots at regular intervals)
• URL Handling (click a URL in a VM and it opens on your Mac)
• Improved Multiple Display Support
• Improved 3D Performance
• Localized In Six Languages

If you need to run Windows applications on your Mac, Fusion is a great way to do so. A free 30 day trial is available on the Fusion website.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Looks like I might be a little late on this piece of news, but I only found out about it a few minutes ago.

If you like (or just need) Windows on your Mac, one of the leaders in Windows virtualization on the Mac has released Beta 1 of their product. VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 is now available for download. Beta 1 will set you back absolutely nothing; it’s free!

Among the new features in Fusion 2.0:

• Multi-Display Support
• Experimental 3D Acceleration
• Easier Printing
• USB Improvements

The blog post announcing the Beta 1 release has a cool video of the multi-display feature. If you would like to test the beta, you can download it HERE. Don’t forget to file bugs or issues with the Fusion team if you encounter a problem!

Popularity: 15% [?]

VMware has released an update to their wildly popular virtualization software, Fusion. Fusion 1.1.1 is a maintenance release and contains a number of Leopard fixes in addition to some networking, printing, and other fixes. I wouldn’t normally write about a minor release for such a popular software package, but Fusion 1.1.1 fixed perhaps the most annoying “bug” that I’ve come across.

Just after every launch of Fusion prior to 1.1.1, I had to do the most annoying thing. I had to move my mouse to enter in my administrator password. For some reason unknown to humankind, the Fusion password prompt would pop up without being the focus. This meant that after launching Fusion, somehow the application would take focus away from the upcoming password prompt window. Every time I had to move my mouse just to enter in my password to continue booting my XP partition. With the release of Fusion 1.1.1, the password prompt is now the focus and I can continue booting XP without moving my mouse. Hurrah, let us all rejoice!

Popularity: 11% [?]