Thread: VMWare Fusion in SL?

Anyone using this? I've finally gotten SL up and running, and I'm starting to migrate apps from my old EFIX install. VMWare 2.0.5 installs, but seems MISERABLY slow. I've been watching my virtual XP machine boot for over 30 min now... Seems unusable now.

Anyone have better luck than me? Any luck with parallels? I bought Fusion because I read Parallels didn't work well with EFIX. I don't use Windows much, but I really can't completely switch over to SL until this is worked out.

Works fine for me under 32-bit. Won't run under 64-bit. Switched to Parallels after that disappointment.

virtual box runs pretty well and it is free.

It's good for the price of free, but it's lacking some things like drag and drop support. I got both VMWare and Parallels for free through work. I really prefer VMWare but had to leave it behind for now until it supports 64-bit.

OK, this is odd. Fusion is just miserably slow - I haven't gotten one of my VMs to boot up all the way. An XP VM takes about 30 minutes just to get to the initial boot splash screen.

I downloaded a trial of parallels, and tried to install a NEW copy of XP. It sat at the "Inspecting hardware" screen for ages, I eventually gave up. Can anyone think of something that could cause this? Something messed up in one of the SL install files, like DSTD, SMBIOS, etc? I followed the "Snow Leopard Install Guide" using one of the "DSDT's Ready for Use With Chameleon"... I did make a change to start in 32 bit mode because my wireless NIC doesn't work in 64bit (neither does Fusion).

When I reboot back into EFI-X and 10.5.8, Fusion works fine. Only thing I change in the BIOS when I reboot is AHCI off for EFI-X, on for Chameleon.

OK, gotta be something different between my setup and the setup of those that say this works. SL seems to work great, but Fusion and Parallels are completely unusable. I have tried starting existing VMs, and creating new VMs in both. Can't do it. It literally takes 10 minutes just to get through the VMWare BIOS splash screen. Almost seems like an IRQ conflict or something.

This is what shows up in console. At the point I took this, the progress bar on the initial VMWare BIOS splash screen is maybe 70% finished. 15+ min so far...

9/29/09 11:35:37 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:35:37 CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!
9/29/09 11:36:19 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:36:19 adaptor daemon shut down
9/29/09 11:36:19 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:36:19 connector "vmlocal" shut down
9/29/09 11:37:37 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:37:37 no printer configured or none available
9/29/09 11:37:37 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:37:37 adaptor daemon booted
9/29/09 11:37:37 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:37:37 no locale info available
9/29/09 11:37:37 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:37:37 connector "vmlocal" booted
9/29/09 11:40:49 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:40:49 CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!
9/29/09 11:45:55 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:45:55 CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!
9/29/09 11:51:01 PM [0x0-0x1c41c4].com.vmware.fusion[1693] 2009-09-29 23:51:01 CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!

This is my hardware - I'm hoping one of you smart guys can brainstorm something.

GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-UD3R
CORE 2 QUAD Q9550 2.83G
8 GB Corsair DDR3
XFX geforce 9800 gtx+ 512mb
SAMSUNG SH-S223Q/BEBS LightScribe 22X DVD+\-RW
WD 1TB WD1001FALS SATA 7200RPM (x2)

I'm using the AsereBLN's DSDT for the GA-EP45T-UD3LR motherboard, which is identical to mine with the exception of audio. I've got virtualization enabled in my BIOS. It all works great in 10.5.8. This is a killer for me, if I can't get this to work, bye-bye SL.

Parallels works fine for me - had to leave Vmware behind for SL.

I saw this problem as well when i switched from EFI-X to Chameleon. What i did was to uninstall VMWareTools from the VM and then reinstall. After that, things worked fine. Also, you have to run SL in 32-bit if you are running Fusion 2.0.5. They just released 2.0.6 which is supposed to fix a lot of the problems running on SL. See if that works. I would recommend upgrading to 2.0.6 and then removing and reinstalling VMWareTools. I found it cleaner to remove VMWareTools and then reinstall instead of doing an upgrade of VMWareTools.

Originally Posted by X-EFI-X'er

I saw this problem as well when i switched from EFI-X to Chameleon. What i did was to uninstall VMWareTools from the VM and then reinstall. After that, things worked fine. Also, you have to run SL in 32-bit if you are running Fusion 2.0.5. They just released 2.0.6 which is supposed to fix a lot of the problems running on SL. See if that works. I would recommend upgrading to 2.0.6 and then removing and reinstalling VMWareTools. I found it cleaner to remove VMWareTools and then reinstall instead of doing an upgrade of VMWareTools.

I guess it's worth a shot. The weird part is, I get this slowness even when trying to create a new VM from scratch, and I get it with Fusion OR Parallels. I have already installed the fusion 2.06 beta - it seemed to help a little with display (I could see the splash screen rather than just a black screen) but still useless.

I am running in 32 bit mode (my wireless NIC doesn't work in 64 bit) so it isn't that. It really looks like a conflict of some sort since I can't even get past the VMWare BIOS screen. I'm wondering if something in the DSDT might be causing a problem?

Did more testing yesterday. Very strange. I tried Virtualbox this time. Had a LITTLE better luck, but was able to get more specifics on the problem. This was the creation of a brand new VM. I'd see progress moving along nicely, and then it would just hang. Then, if I did something as simple as shutdown Safari, it would pick up again and I'd see quick progress for a short time (maybe 15 seconds) and then it would hang again. This time I'd START Safari, and progress would pick up again. Sometimes just clicking the BACK button in the browser would do it, sometimes not. It's almost like there is a multitasking problem. Anyway, I never really got anywhere with it, but there is an obvious problem. I don't see this with anything else, but I don't have much else installed on SL.