Questions about VMWARE Fusion and Viruses

[Kyrahlynn]

A friend recently lent me VMWARE Fusion to load onto my Mac, and said that it would allow me to run Windows programs without needing me to actually load Windows as well. This sounds great to me, because I've got a bunch of Windows games that I'd like to be able to play on my Mac, but I'm dead against putting Windows itself on in order to do it (I don't want to risk viruses.) But before I load it, I want to ask a few questions:

1. In running Windows games on my Mac, does it open up the possibility for me to get viruses? (I doubt that it does, but I want to be sure)

2. Will the game performance be alright? I'm not looking to play anything really memory intensive, but will there be any problems with this?

3. Will I be able to play old games (say Windows 95)?

4. Are there any issues I should worry about?


Thanks!

 

[glassmen07]

Running windows via VMWARE wont give you a virus on your mac. Depending on what you do, you could always get a virus on the windows part, but it wont cross over to your mac.

Performance depends on what kind of mac you have, but in my experience, they always run well.

 

[Kyrahlynn]

Running windows via VMWARE wont give you a virus on your mac. Depending on what you do, you could always get a virus on the windows part, but it wont cross over to your mac.

So I don't need to worry about viruses, period, if I don't put Windows on my Mac, correct? I just don't like the idea of there being viruses on my comp, whether it's in the windows or mac part- which is why I'm not putting windows itself on

Performance depends on what kind of mac you have, but in my experience, they always run well.

That's great to know, thanks^^

 

[xpipe]

You're not understanding what Fusion is. It's a way to run Windows on your Mac, not a way to way to run Windows programs without installing Windows.

If your friend is already using Fusion, I don't know if you'd be able to use it. You have to input the serial number during installation and if it's already being used, it might not work. I don't think you can pass it around to all your friends for them to use. But that doesn't matter, anyway, if you're not installing Windows (see above).

About the viruses thing...I think that if you had some kind of antivirus program, it would catch the viruses.

Virtual machines are not known for their gaming performance. Although, maybe if it's a Windows 95-era game, it might be OK. I understand that Fusion 2.0 has some improved graphics capabilities, though. But I'm not a gaming person, so I'll defer to someone else on that aspect of it.

 

[shoulin333]

your best bet is to just install windows on bootcamp, the osx partition cannot get infected. Worst case you can wipe windows and reinstall if that part gets infected, but it will not affect you osx install. Simply put osx does not understand windows viruses, you can plug in a thumb drive full of windows viruses, copy them to your desktop, rename them, make copies of the copies... hehe u you get it will simply not hurt anything...This is the reason that i use my MBP in OSX when i clone customer's windows hard drives.