VMWare Fusion 1.0b2 (Beta 2) has been released by VMWare. It can be downloaded here. VMWare Fusion for Mac only runs on Intel-based Macs.
This beta adds “Experimental 3-D graphics support”, which we are guessing led to the creation of this video that shows a 3D Windows game being played under VMWare and Mac OS X. This is big, seeing as how Parallels Desktop does not have this feature. A Snapshot feature has been added, which archives “known good states” of your virtual machines. Networking and Microsoft Windows Vista support has also been improved.
Release Notes:
New and Improved Features in Beta 2
* Experimental 3-D graphics support — Play a selection of DirectX 8.1 games in Windows XP Service Pack 2 virtual machines.
* Snapshot feature — Roll back your virtual machine to a known good state when something goes wrong in your virtual machine—for example, when your virtual machine picks up a virus, or when a software upgrade causes problems.
* Improved networking — Automatically bridge to the computer’s primary network interface.
Full support for Airport wireless networking, including virtual machines behind a NAT firewall and bridged to the local Airport network.
Support for up to ten virtual network interfaces
* Improved Microsoft Vista support — Support for Microsoft Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.
Complete VMware Tools support for Microsoft Vista including copy/paste, dragging and dropping files, shared folders, and screen resizing.
* Improved hardware editor — Add additional virtual hard drives to a virtual machine for needed capacity.
View the physical computer’s battery status in the virtual machine.
* Improved full screen mode — Support for plugging and unplugging displays while virtual machines are in full screen mode.
Improved usability: an on-screen tip shows how to enter and exit full screen mode easily.
* Experimental support for Mac OS X Leopard — You can now install and run VMware Fusion on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Support is experimental because Mac OS X 10.5 is not yet released. VMware Fusion will support the release version of OS X 10.5 in the final VMware Fusion release.
Bugs Fixed in Beta 2
* Improved keyboard and mouse support — Third-party graphics tablets, keyboards, and mice no longer interfere with keyboard and mouse input.
Support for plugging and unplugging input devices while virtual machines are running.
Support for using VMware Fusion with remote access applications such as VNC, Synergy, and Remote Desktop.
* Improved CD/DVD support
* Better support for mounting and unmounting discs in virtual machines
* Quicken Scheduler corrupts keyboard and mouse input in virtual machines — Offer workaround to disable Quicken Scheduler when it is detected.
* Various other bug fixes.