VMware Fusion 2 - running win app w/o running WIN OS

[moootah]

hey y'all,

i'm going to switch really soon (waiting for SL to come out) but there are like two win apps i'll need to run on my mac and so i've decided to use vmware fusion for that. there's a feature i heard that allows you to run a windows app without the need of running WIN OS in the virtual machine...do i get this right, or am i missing something?

and if i get it right, does it mean, that the app that runs without running windows runs in at native speed?

thanks

 

[fhall1]

Fusion needs Windows to run Windows apps...what it can do is run the app "outside" the normal Fusion virtual machine window, so the app looks like it's on the Mac desktop. (Unity mode I think it's called)....but Windows is still there running in the background.

 

[kitty1920]

Yep, what FHall said is correct. There are three modes when using VMF -- Full Screen (you can only "see" Windows), Normal (runs like any other app), and Unity Mode. Unity mode works basically the way FHall said it does.

One thing I will add is if you are running Windows this way and you have less than 4 GB of ram, it can be VERY slow.. On my machine I had the ram split 2/2. It performed much better than when I had just 2 GB to split.

(Sorry for my rambling - I've had a bit of experience running Windows and Linux this way).

 

[ayeying]

Yep, what FHall said is correct. There are three modes when using VMF -- Full Screen (you can only "see" Windows), Normal (runs like any other app), and Unity Mode. Unity mode works basically the way FHall said it does.

One thing I will add is if you are running Windows this way and you have less than 4 GB of ram, it can be VERY slow.. On my machine I had the ram split 2/2. It performed much better than when I had just 2 GB to split.

(Sorry for my rambling - I've had a bit of experience running Windows and Linux this way).

Or you can just allocate LESS ram to the virtual machine. I'm running a Vista VM with 512MB ram and a Ubuntu VM with 256MB ram on the MacBook Air.

 

[Scottyk9]

Just to followup, there is an app that will allow you to run *some* windows applications without running Windows OS. It is called crossover, and works fairly well for some apps. Check their website for compatibility.