VMware Fusion Goes 2.0 Beta, Free Upgrade For 1.x Owners!
The folks at VMware have announced the availability of a new beta version of VMware Fusion, their virtualization software for Mac OS X. There are two reasons I immediately ran–not walked–to download and install this beta version:
- Proper support for multiple screens–something that affects me quite a bit
- The ability to convert a Boot Camp partition to a standalone VM–something I asked about early on in the VMware Fusion process
They’ve also added better support for DirectX (offering experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2) as well as made it easier to print to your Mac OS X printer from Windows!
I am still kicking the tires, as it were. One issue I see is that their drivers for Windows XP aren’t signed. Upgrading VMware Tools in my Boot Camp Partition converted to a virtual machine did not go entirely smoothly. There was a piece of undetected hardware initially, though it went away after a reboot. Nothing earth shatteringly wrong.
The good news is, for all you people who purchased VMware Fusion 1.x, version 2 is a free upgrade. If you’re not already a convert, they provide a license key you can use to try the beta version of the product out.
