Alaskan Apple Users Group Blog

by Paul Vaona, AAUG Member

Disclaimer: SmithMicro provided a free copy of VMWare Fusion 3 to me for the purpose of this review.

My return to Mac a few years back had remained incomplete until just recently and never more happily until now. Growing up with an Apple II, like so many others, I crossed over to Dark Side, I mean Windows, as a matter of convenience and though I was never completely happy with the operating system, I always found something lacking, the prevalence of the operating system made the shortcomings a bit bearable.
Finally reaching a point of utter frustration I, like Darth Vader, realized there was still good within and returned to Mac. This return has been difficult at times as so few realize that Mac users might want to use their product. As difficult as it was, I had to maintain a separate Windows platform for work and my GPS.
Having personally used, and through research, “Parallel”s never seemed a good option. Too slow, not functional and too draining on system resources the BootCamp software seemed a more viable route. Never one to test the waters once I made a decision to dive in, I replaced the Windows platform and dove head first into BootCamp.
As is the case in life, convenience comes at a cost and having one platform for both operating systems can be a costly convenience. Switching back and forth between operating systems required shutting down one and restarting in the other, drastically reducing ability to truly multi-task and ability to share files between operating systems never seem to work very well. In the end it came down to being able to maintain one platform was the winner.
So why the long diatribe? Why do I find myself typing away late into the night? I have had a rethink of my view on Parallels. Recently, through the Alaska Apple User Group, I was given the chance to review SmithMicro’s VMware Fusion 3 and I find the cost of convenience has been reduced.

Computer: MacBook 5,1 Intel 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo, 2 Gig RAM and 250 Gig HD
Installation of Fusion 3: Simple, though some ability to fine tune size of hard drive to be set aside not intuitive. I do like the concept that the hard drive space is only a “potential” size and not actually formatted as in the case in Bootcamp. My concern is that as a “professional” amateur photographer my hard drive fills from time to time to the point of encroaching on the 40 gigs that Fusion has set aside and as of yet I have found no literature explaining what the consequences will be. Also as of yet, I have not found any documentation on if and how to adjust the 40 gigs down once installed or if a reinstall would be required. I guess you could say documentation could have been better.
Installation of Windows XP: Simplicity at its best and as much as could be expected with Windows. I noted no difference in installation through Fusion from a singular Windows platform.
Operating: With Fusion on my dock “starting” Windows is a single click away. For those times I need to access Windows I don’t need to stop what I am doing and restart in Windows only to restart back in Mac OS after I complete what is usually a quick task. Should I discover a needed file is in a Mac folder a simple drag a drop is all that is required.
No system is perfect and Fusion 3 certainly has it’s downside. Booting up Windows, launching applications and shutting down seems to take longer. With no scientific means of putting a stopwatch to the process I initially chalked this up to watching a draft-horse while sitting on a thoroughbred. After sometime though I realized that in fact the process was much slower. Several times I launched as many high resource-demanding applications in Mac as I could in addition to Windows in Fusion 3 and noted a significant slowing of Windows applications while not noting any significant change Mac applications. Thankfully this is unrealistic in my actual use.
While I certainly don’t consider myself an expert in Mac OS I am far from a novice. The initial and basic installation of Fusion 3 is something that even the most novice of user can do without any difficulty. Tweaking, however, is something that seems to lack intuitiveness and the documentation could be better.
Overall, Fusion 3 is a welcome addition to my computer and has made my workflow that much easier. What detractors that I have found are easily overcome by its ease of use and ability to truly multi-task. Cost remains the one outstanding detractor. Having to spend $79.99 in addition to the cost of a Windows OS might make Fusion 3 less attractive to other options such as BootCamp (hard to beat free in the case of BootCamp).