VMWare Workstation and VMWare Fusion on OSX

[XPNet]

I'm looking to switching to a new MacOS and have a few conserns,

I have a lot of projects already running in vmware workstation 8 and wondering how they will handle in Fusion? Would it be better to attempt to install the linux workstation on OSX? Running bootcamp back and forth with VMFusion will that be a problem for having to reregister windows? Any other things I should look out for when making the switch?

Thanks for the feedback in advance

[weinstein5]

One option is you can export the VMs from WS as an OVF and import it into  Fusion

[WoodyZ]

You do not necessarily need to export as an OVF as previously suggested because generally speaking you can simply copy/move move a VM made under Workstation 8.x directly to VMware Fusion 4.x.  Note that not all options of VMware Workstation 8 are available under VMware Fusion, things like physical parallel/serial ports, to name a couple, because the iMac and MacBooks do not have theses.  Obviously you'll need to reset any Shared Folders as the fully qualified pathnames will be different.

[XPNet]

Thanks,

Basically I'm planning on having a boot camp windows machine and my VMs on a external SSD drive. When I'm in Windows I'll use workstation and when I'm in OSx use fusion.

..

I guess it's a no go for workstation to run under OsX?

[WoodyZ]

I guess it's a no go for workstation to run under OsX?

Not unless VMware will make a version that will.

[AKostur]

Something that you may have to worry about, your VMs will see the CPU changing.  The OS is going to need to be able to deal with that.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Why do you need bootcamp - is there a particular reason (e.g. 3d Games)?

In theory you can switch back and forth between Fusion/OSX and Workstation/Windows/Boot Camp, but you may run into the following:

1) Virtual hardware incompatiblity and/or prompts to upgrade all the time

2) Ditto with VMWare tools

3) Make very sure you shut down (not suspend) the VM's before switching between the two

4) Don't use snapshots unless you're *very* careful as to where they were created

5) Shared folders will probably break on a regular basis because of the different host paths.  Suggest disabling them

6) Potential because of 1 and 2 of having the OS need to be revalidated

In the end, if there isn't anything you really need Boot Camp for, just stick with Fusion and run all your windows stuff in the VM.

I run workstation created VM's all the time - but it's generally a one-way conversion (fix the paths, change the hardware/tools, etc) than a true back and forth.