Category: Fusion

Apple, Fusion, VMware

[Shorts] Fusion 7.1 cannot perform a P2V with iCloud Password on OS X Mavericks

Bas Raayman

Recently my parents switched to a Mac from a PC, and I helped set things up for them. The machine was quite nice, a new iMac Retina, and I helped my dad migrate their old PC to a VM on the new Mac. Now, this entire process is pretty straightforward. You put the Mac and the PC on the same network, input a four digit token (or input an IP and port), then authenticate with a user and password, and things should work.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the case for me. The Windows system wanted to have UAC disable on the Windows 8 Machine, which isn’t a problem, but the error message wouldn’t go away. Problem was, that it was a pretty generic error message “A failure occurred”, without even so much as an error code that made any sense. The log files also didn’t work.

While I was guessing it might be related to a username problem (spaces in the username), I tried several things on the Windows side, and checked the user on the Mac as well. It was then I found out that under OSX Mavericks, you can now enable using an iCloud password, which was already set up (using a screenshot here of my MacBook Pro as an example):

iCloud Password
iCloud Password

Long story short, as soon as I used a separate local password for the user, the P2V migration worked like a charm. I enabled the iCloud password again, and the migration wouldn’t go through. Since I wasn’t able to find this in the VMware KB, I figured I might as well share this here.

Fusion, Uncategorized, Virtualization, VMware

VMware releases Fusion 5

Bas Raayman

Some folks on Twitter already spotted it: It seems like along with the release of VMware Workstation 9, the guys and girls over at VMware also released Fusion 5.

And with this new release come some expected things. As always, it’s bigger, better and faster. It adds suport for some of the new operating systems that are out there, for example, there is full support for Mountain Lion, and suppport was added for the new MacBook Pro with retina displays. Windows 8 support is finally built in, and they didn’t only think about the Redmond users, but also added 3D desktop support for selected Linux distributions, and one really cool feature (if your Mac is new enough to support it) is that you can use Airplay to display your VM on a TV using an Apple TV.

VMware claims that there are over 70 new features in the new version of Fusion, but I wasn’t able to locate the entire list as of yet. If I do find that list, I’ll be sure to add it to my post. In the meantime, here is the marketing shortlist:

  • Optimized for OS X Mountain Lion
  • Optimized for Windows 8
  • Designed for latest Macs
  • Faster performance
  • Retina Display Optimization
  • USB 3 support
  • Enhanced battery management
  • Enhanced UI
  • 1-click snapshot
  • Linux 3D
  • Embedded Learning Center

In the meantime, if you purchased your copy of VMware Fusion 4 from July 25th through September 30th, 2012, you are covered by the VMware Fusion “Technology Guarantee Program”, and you are eligible for a complimentary electronic upgrade to VMware Fusion 5. You can find out all about that here: http://www.vmware.com/support/product-support/fusion/faq/licensing.html?cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk

If you want to test out this new version, go right ahead and download a trial here: http://www.vmware.com/go/tryfusion, or to immediately purchase the new version, follow this link: http://www.vmware.com/go/buyfusion. Be sure to do a quick Google search on discount codes, since there are bound to be some upgrade offers out there. 🙂