VMware Fusion - 1.1 Quick Start Manual

Getting Started with VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion for Mac OS X

Getting Started with VMware Fusion
Revision: 20071025
Item: VMF-ENG-Q407-295

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Getting Started y

Getting Started with VMware Fusion

Introduction

VMware Fusion™ allows you to run your favorite PC applications on your
Intel-based Mac. Designed from the ground up for the Mac user, VMware Fusion
makes it easy to take advantage of the security, flexibility, and portability of
virtual machines to run Windows and other x86 operating systems side-by-side
with Mac OS X.

What Is a Virtual Machine?

A virtual machine is software that behaves just as a physical computer does. A
virtual machine contains a display, a hard disk, one or more processors, memory,
a CD/DVD drive, a network adapter, and a USB controller—all virtualized. That is,
these elements of a virtual machine are all created by software and stored in files
on your Mac.

The virtual machine runs in a window on your Intel-based Mac. You install an
operating system and applications in the virtual machine and operate it as you
would a physical computer.

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The Mac that you run a virtual machine on is sometimes referred to as the host.
In this context, the virtual machine is referred to as a guest.

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What You Can Do with VMware Fusion

With VMware Fusion, Intel-based Mac users can:

 Run your favorite Windows and Linux applications on an Intel-based

Mac–With VMware Fusion, you can run virtual machines with a wide range
of Windows and Linux operating systems, so you can run your favorite
applications side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting.

 Create virtual machines – VMware Fusion provides a New Virtual Machine

Assistant to guide you through the process of creating a virtual machine.

 Run multiple operating systems while protecting the integrity of your

Mac – VMware Fusion lets you safely run virtual machines isolated from the
Mac by making use of the hardware-level security and fault isolation of
virtualization solutions.

 Evaluate and use prebuilt applications easily – With VMware Fusion,

you can download and safely run prebuilt applications designed to solve
specific problems in virtual machines that are available from the growing
library of virtual appliances. See the Virtual Appliance Marketplace at

http://vam.vmware.com/.

The Virtual Appliance Marketplace includes virtual machines from various
software vendors, as well as virtual machines that are preconfigured with
popular open source software. With VMware Fusion you can download
and try a completely configured Linux virtual machine without having to
be a Linux expert or you can try preconfigured business appliances with
applications from leading software vendors, including Oracle, Red Hat,
Novell, BEA, SpikeSource, IBM, and MySQL.

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Features of VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion provides the following features:

 With the powerful Unity feature, VMware Fusion transforms your Windows

applications to work like Mac applications and gives you the seamless Mac
experience you expect. Minimize Windows applications to the Dock, switch
between Windows and Mac applications with Exposé, and find and
instantly launch any Windows application just as you would a Mac
application. For more details and the latest information on Unity support
for your Windows operating system, see the VMware Fusion release notes
at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/fusion_pubs.html.

 VMware Fusion’s New Virtual Machine Assistant guides you through the

process of creating a virtual machine. The Windows Easy Install feature
automatically installs Windows and optimizes your Windows virtual
machine for use on the Mac.

 Experimental support for hardware accelerated 3-D graphics lets you run

DirectX 9.0 applications (without shader support) and play select 3-D
games in Windows XP Service Pack 2 virtual machines.

 Only VMware Fusion supports both 32-bit and 64-bit guest operating

systems on most Macs. As the world moves to 64-bit with the Intel Core 2
Duo and Xeon processors and 64-bit native operating systems, you are
ready today with VMware Fusion and its exclusive support for 64-bit
operating systems in virtual machines.

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 You can use VMware Virtual SMP™. On Macs with more than one processor

core, you can use VMware Fusion to power on a virtual machine that has
either one or two virtual processors assigned, taking advantage of the
multi-core Intel processors in the Intel-based Macs.

 Take a snapshot of your entire virtual machine in a known good state, and

revert to that snapshot when something goes wrong in your virtual
machine—for example, when your virtual machine picks up a virus, or
when a software upgrade causes problems.

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 VMware Fusion supports high-speed USB 2.0 for a huge range of devices.

Even devices that do not have drivers for Mac OS X will work in a virtual
machine.

 Network with your Mac seamlessly. Or, you can set the type of network

connection for the virtual machine, letting the virtual machine share or
obtain its own IP address or isolate it from the network and host.
Networking options are: bridged, NAT, and host-only. VMware Fusion
provides full support for Airport wireless networking, including virtual
machines behind a NAT firewall and bridged to the local Airport network.
VMware Fusion supports up to ten virtual network interfaces.

 You can connect and disconnect any preconfigured devices in your virtual

machine, and configure some features of virtual hardware and devices. You
can add virtual hard disks to your virtual machine for increased capacity and
adjust the allotment of virtual memory for your virtual machine.

 You can move text between the virtual machine and the host quickly and

easily by copying and pasting, and you can move files by dragging and
dropping. You can also set up shared folders on your host computer, so you
can easily share files and folders between your virtual machine and your
host computer. To use these features, you must have VMware Tools
installed.

For instructions on using these features, see the Help provided in VMware Fusion
(choose Help > VMware Fusion Help).

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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.

 512MB of RAM, 1GB recommended.

 275MB of free disk space for VMware Fusion, and at least 1GB of free disk

space for each virtual machine.

 Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or higher

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OTE 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.

Supported Guest Operating Systems

VMware Fusion supports over 60 guest operating systems, including Windows

3.1 through Windows Vista, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD. The operating systems
listed here have been tested in VMware Fusion virtual machines and are officially
supported. For the most recent list of guest operating systems supported by
VMware products, with notes on installing the most common guest operating
systems, see the VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide:

http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/.

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