VMware Fusion 4 [Old Version]

I was forced to purchase this product from APPLE in order to keep current with their technology.

I have had no problems running VMWare Fusion 4 with a Windows 98 and various Linux installations. But...Im not happy about the fact that it requires a paid upgrade only a year later in order to maintain compatibility with Mountain Lion. I was happy using VirtualBox for virtualization prior to VMWare, and will be going back to that stable, reliable and free Open Source solution (available from Oracle).

If you buy this with a Mac and expect a rebate, dont hold your breath. Ive tried twice and both times got stiffed. I have heard from others that this is some kind of racket with this company - promise a rebate and then never send it. If its worth it to you at full price, knock yourself out, but plan on not getting your rebate.

In rating these two products, my opinions are based on Experience with Installation, configuration, migration, and conversion on a new iMAC running Lion OS (16 gig RAM) and BOTH Software packages.

This barely worked out of the box. Clunky and slow, drops out in the middle of projects.

I found the download from disc much more difficult to handle than the free trial that I used first. It still does not work correctly, I had to load Windows twice to get it to work without freezing up it works but not as well as I had hoped.

After using VMware Fusion for a few months it has become a regular tool in my web development tasks. A few of the reasons I enjoy working with Fusion is:

I have been using this product for over 6 months now. It is functional in the sense that it does allow you to run Windows on a Mac but it sometimes takes several minutes for this program to load on a Nov 2011 MacBook Pro (with plenty of memory and plenty of hard drive space available). I need this program (or one of its competitors) to allow me to run a Windows only program (Minitab) on my Mac. I read good things about the newer version of this program being faster and I am more than willing to pay to upgrade to the newer version. My one and only reservation is I dont want to have to spend all the time and find all the activation codes to reinstall Windows, my anti-virus software, and Minitab on my Mac. I have repeatedly written to and called VMware trying to get one simple question answered - will upgrading to Fusion 5 require me to reinstall all my Windows based software or will it simply keep what is already installed on my Mac without me having to spend the time to reinstall everything?

This software is junk! Ive spent hours trying to get it to work, and contacted support after two failed migration attempts. Support has been slow and unhelpful to date. Im left with a wast of time and money.

Im an automotive mechanic. One of my diagnostic tools is Windows-only and connects to vehicles via a USB interface. Booting the Macbook into Bootcamp for diagnostic sessions was a hassle.