TIMOTHY CARLTON MD  VMware Fusion is HORRIBLE. They just released an update (2.0.5) that is NOT compatible with the video acceleration software in the ATI cards of most iMacs. This now renders my iMac useless for viewing my hospital records. I am a cardiologist and now I cannot get to my patients records. This was done without any warning that the update would cause this problem. Trying to get any help from VMware is USELESS. Tomorrow I install Parallels. I have installed Parallels on 2 of my children's Intel Macs and never encountered anything like this. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND NOT BUYING VMwares product. This is an incredibly irresponsible act by VMware.  
(Version 2.0.5)

NGOLES  Okay, I'm a Software Developer and also a Computer Science Student.

VMware Fusion has worked wonders for me for doing database work in Windows environments, Installing Oracle, SQLServer and working with those via Visual Studio 2008 has been really easy and flawless for me, I'm not doing that kind of stuff anymore, but I would really recommend VMWare Fusion to do so.

Currently I have a MacBook 2007 ,2ghz, 3GB RAM. And use a windows XP VM from time to time with 800 MB allocated to it. Fusion has worked wonderfully for me, I remember trying to achieve this on parallels 3, it was SO slow, migrated to Fusion and my problems where over.

If you develop multi platform ( Linux, Windows, Mac OS X ), I think Fusion is what transforms my MacBook in a Software developer Swiss Army Knife, making it a flexible machine to work in multiple Operating Systems, with the core of the stable OSX Leopard.

If you're like me, this is your software.

Cheers.

NG.   
(Version 2.0.4)

DENDE O  As a very early adopter of virtualization in the corporate world (running Vmware's Virtual Infrastructure product) and being very impressed by it, I never bothered to really try Parallels, I went straight for VMware Fusion on my late 2007 MBP, it ran great with no problems, and I loved it. On my early 2009 MBP with 4Gb and a speedy 7200 rpm drive Fusion still ran great. However, Im in the Technology R&D profession, and I find the best way to evaluate any product it to use it in your day to day life, and thats what I did when I tried Virtual Box.

I made a copy of my VMware Fusion's vmdk and converted my windows XP VM to virtualbox and ran it for a number of weeks. The speed difference between virutalbox and fusion was immediately clear. Virtualbox ran circles around Fusion in performance. Fusion was always a very stabled product and so is virtualbox, (though in some early iderations of vb things werent quite as stabled as they are now), I am also amazed how much lighter the vb footprint is on my system. When I ran fusion, I would only start fusion up when I wanted to exclusively use windowsXP because I knew all my other mac sessions would perform poorly...and I can just about forget about launching photoshop and bridge together. With Virtualbox, I start windows and leave it running in a different space (on leopard) and sometimes forget its running. When I close the cover of my mpb, virtualbox automatically sleep the vm and wake it back up when I open the lid.

I know this is suppose to be a Fusion review section, but I just wanted you guys to be aware of another product, thats FREE and faster than fusion. I am still a very big advocate for VMware in the corporate world, but for all my home users there is no better virtualization product than Virtualbox  
(Version 2.0.4)

LEMERLOT  I've bought both - VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop 3 which still works great.

When I wanted to use both processors of my Core2Duo MacBookPro for special tasks with Win XP, I tried Parallels 4. Since 4 months (!!) I haven't been able to install Parallels 4 and even Parallels' support didn't help. Have a look in their forums - it looks like a very unhappy beta testing community.

So I finally switched to VMware Fusion 2 which works like a charm. Btw. I was really sad seeing how the formerly really great Parallels Desktop went down in customer satisfaction.  
(Version 2.0.4)

MARUKO DRINKING TEAM  I have to agree that VMWare has proven to be the most stable way to virtualize Windows, Linux, and OpenSolaris. I too own Parallels, and have had it crash many times, including freezing the whole Mac. I've not had that experience with VMWare. (Nor with the free VirtualBox, but that is still too primitive for me to really use much, so it's hard to judge.)

Especially under heavy load, VMWare Fusion shines. At work I currently run a 2009 Mac Pro (Nehalem), with 8 cores and 16GB of RAM. On this hardware, in addition to Mac OS X 10.5 as my normal boot OS, I keep four VMs running: Ubuntu Linux 8.04, OpenSolaris 2008.11, Windows 7 beta, and Windows XP. Each VM has 1 or 2 cores and 2GB of RAM.

Normally I keep the VMWare hidden as I go about my work, but at some point in most days I need to call up each of the guest OSes for some specific task. Performance is excellent and it runs great for weeks on end, until I need to reboot the machine for some reason. For me, VMWare is a killer app.

(One hint: in prefs, choose to optimize Mac OS X app performance over VM disk performance. This makes a really big difference in keeping your system performing well if you do most of your work in Mac OS X but like to leave VMs running.)  
(Version 2.0.3)

LEE123  It is really strange to see such negative comments about this product. I own both parallels and vmware. I used parallels for about a year before moving to vmware. I found it to be a more solid product and THE only one that will properly run most linux distros. I run winxp pro with no problems at all with software or hardware. I also have fedora 10 and Debian installed and working great.  
(Version 2.0.3)

KENTR  OVERHYPED! I've been reading for months now how great this piece of software is so I downloaded the latest demo. I tried all sorts of programs and games and half the time it either crashed or I had to force quit. I have a powerful MacPro. I'll stick with Parallels thank you very much. Parallels is just more full featured and refined.   
(Version 2.0.2)

WHYTOI  Great, love updates from VMware.

Just note that the full installer for 2.0.2 with McAfee VirusScan installer is 286Mb while the lite version without McAfee is 187Mb. Both are available on VMware's site.

I don't need that extra 100Mb of download.  
(Version 2.0.2)

BABIF  never tried parallel...but nothing is making me! chose fusion over bootcamp and loved it. slow at times though and some grafical improvements would be necessary...hoping in major future updates!  
(Version 2.0.1)

MACDEEP  After a frustrating time with VM Fusion 1, I thought that the new version might make things better. I was mistaken. I got a Mac over a year ago because I thought I could run some programs I need for work that aren't available for Mac. So I bought Windows XP Pro, installed it in a virtual machine I created with VM Fusion, and installed my programs. Windows never ran right, and as someone else mentioned, the performance on the Mac suffered. There were commands I was used to, simple ones, on Windows and now they would not work. I got the newer version, installed it, and since installing it one of my printers that used to work on the old version of the program wouldn't work, even after I reinstalled the printer. I was so frustrated that I finally made a decision. I bought a laptop that came with XP Pro, because to avoid Vista was one of the reasons I switched to Mac, installed my software on it, and the printer works just fine, thank you very much, and one of the most fun things I have done on a computer was to simply move VM Fusion, along with everything else in the virtual machine into the trash, which I promptly emptied and recovered 45 G's of memory for the Mac. Next I am going to take the CD's with both versions of VM Fusion outside, place them on a significant block of wood, and smash them to smithereens with a substantial sledge hammer. What a waste of my precious time this experiment has been.   
(Version 2.0.1)