VMWare to Toughen Support for Mac OS X Virtualization?

[Anthony Bouchard]

VMWare Fusion 4 recently added support for virtualization of Leopard and Snow Leopard.

VMWare Fusion is an application that allows you to run an operating system inside of your operating system. It let's you run the second operating system in something called a virtual machine, which is called such because it runs through the hardware that the main operating system is already using. The main operating system shares the hardware power with the virtual machine running inside of it. Because of this, if you are running a secondary operating system as a virtual machine, your main operating system will become a little more sluggish than usual as it shares RAM and CPU power with the secondary operating system.

VMWare Fusion has been a popular way for Mac users to run Windows or Linux on their Macs for ages. A direct competitor of VMWare Fusion is Parallels Desktop which does basically the same thing. I've personally always used VMWare Fusion because I like its GUI more. Just this week, VMWare Fusion was updated to be able to run Mac OS X Leopard and Mac OS X Snow Leopard from a virtual machine on Mac OS X Lion. In the past, Apple has been very picky with VMWare and had a deal signed with them to make sure that VMWare Fusion would not be able to run Mac OS X as a virtual machine. Since then, the only way to virtualize Mac OS X was to find a non-legitmate copy of Mac OS X which is illegal and breaks the terms of service of Apple's software.

Since VMWare has added legitimate support for Mac OS X Leopard and Mac OS X Snow Leopard to VMWare Fusion, Apple is in turn noticing that VMWare Fusion users are finding Mac OS X from places that were not Apple. The latest VMWare Fusion for Mac OS X left out one important feature – a legitimacy test. This means hat software pirates have been able to run Mac OS X on VMWare Fusion for close to a week. There is a mandatory update coming to VMWare Fusion that will re-add the legitimacy check for Mac OS X Leopard and Mac OS X Snow Leopard so that only legitimate users can run the operating system on their computer. Users of non-legitimate copies will face errors trying to boot up from it.

Will VMWare omit Mac OS X from their application again? Or will VMWare just release an update to VMWare Fusion to check for legitimacy? The answer is unclear, but it will be determined in the next update which is coming very soon.

Sources: MacWorld

[feidhlim1986]

"VMware" isn't the name of any application. VMware is the name of the company. Fusion is the name of the application.

VMware Fusion 4 added official support of Mac OS X Server 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7

VMware and Apple have made an agreement to allow Mac OS X be virtualized with Fusion....the catch, since you need to be running Mac OS X anywho to run Fusion, you still need to be running Apple hardware and Mac OS X to have a Mac OS X Virtual Machine. It's serves a purpose to developers testing legacy OS's or users who need to run legacy apps.

Mac OS X Server support has also been added to VMware's vSphere 5 product line also.

Considering Mac OS X contains zero (that I can tell) DRM, whether or not someone has bought a copy of 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 or downloaded a pirate copy, Fusion isn't going to have any problems installing a virtual machine.

[LucasPukus]

"VMware" isn't the name of any application. VMware is the name of the company. Fusion is the name of the application.Do you say "I run Apple on my Laptop"?

^^ He makes a very loud point

[MaxWhiteHat]

"VMware" isn't the name of any application. VMware is the name of the company. Fusion is the name of the application.Do you say "I run Apple on my Laptop"?

Where did they use it wrong?

[feidhlim1986]

Where did they use it wrong?

The very first sentence in the article body, and repeatedly in the second paragraph.

[trek-life]

I would love to atleast once read comments on articles that weren't pointlessly correcting the article and discussing the topic. smh

[feidhlim1986]

I would love to atleast once read comments on articles that weren't pointlessly correcting the article and discussing the topic. smh

Enjoy your life of misinformation.
If someone asked you "How do I run Apple on my Laptop?" or " I need help installing Microsoft on my PC" or "I'm really enjoying reading this book called JRR Tolkien" would you correct them?

[holden_]

I wouldn't know what you were talking about if you said fusion, i also know it as WMware..

[Anthony Bouchard]

Enjoy your life of misinformation.
If someone asked you "How do I run Apple on my Laptop?" or " I need help installing Microsoft on my PC" or "I'm really enjoying reading this book call JRR Tolkien" would you correct them?

I think you meant, "called."

[daviebread]

@feidhlim: need to lighten up dude. I am a VMware admin for multiple VMWare products. In the IT dept. we refer to most of their products by the company name...i.e. "VMware". If you are going to troll around for articles to correct...go to the source that Anthony listed...MacWorld. Otherwise nobody wants to hear your rambling.

@Anthony...good catch on his mistake.

[trek-life]

Enjoy your life of misinformation.
If someone asked you "How do I run Apple on my Laptop?" or " I need help installing Microsoft on my PC" or "I'm really enjoying reading this book call JRR Tolkien" would you correct them?

I likely would just help them install what they were obviously attempting to install. But you win I guess.

[feidhlim1986]

@feidhlim: need to lighten up dude. I am a VMware admin for multiple VMWare products. In the IT dept. we refer to most of their products by the company name...i.e. "VMware". If you are going to troll around for articles to correct...go to the source that Anthony listed...MacWorld. Otherwise nobody wants to hear your rambling.

@Anthony...good catch on his mistake.

MacWorld didn't make the mistake.

As a VMware employee and VMware Technical Support Engineer, it's just kind of frustrating when someone opens a support request with things like "I'm having issues with my VMware..." That's great now can you tell me which of the dozen's of VMware products you're having the issue with?

@Anthony Bouchard Thanks. I wasn't trying to be a d*ck, I just wanted to point out the mistake and you corrected it so thanks again. If a non-Apple related website had a post about "running Apple on a computer", I'm sure many a people here would pounce on that mistake. When did correcting a mistake (that in my eyes is actually quite misleading) turn into such a crime?


But since you're at it...

This means hat software pirates

I think you meant "that"

It's been a long day

[daviebread]

@Feidhlim: now that's a frustration I can understand!

[Anthony Bouchard]

@Anthony Bouchard Thanks. I wasn't trying to be a d*ck, I just wanted to point out the mistake and you corrected it so thanks again. If a non-Apple related website had a post about "running Apple on a computer", I'm sure many a people here would pounce on that mistake. When did correcting a mistake (that in my eyes is actually quite misleading) turn into such a crime?

There's nothing wrong with pointing out my mistake. So, thanks.

If that's as far as it goes, I'm golden. This has been a week where it has gone far beyond pointing out a mistake but also libeling the writer as well. From my point of view, if I receive respect, the commenter will get it back.

[bigstudio]

It has nothing to do with finding a "legitimate copy of OS X". Apple only allows Leopard or Snow Leopard to be virtualized under OS X Server. Fusion used to check if it was running on an OS X server and, if so, it allowed you to install virtual OS X clients. Fusion's latest build accidentally left that check out.It's pretty trivial to fool Fusion into thinking it's running on a server so even if they put the check back it's not a big deal. Do note, however, you'd be in violation of Apple's EULA, stupid as it is.

[ishamiyal]

Considering Mac OS X contains zero (that I can tell) DRM, whether or not someone has bought a copy of 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 or downloaded a pirate copy, Fusion isn't going to have any problems installing a virtual machine.

Mac OS X doesn't really have anything in the way of DRM, however Mac OS X Server has always required a serial number to install. Having installation media with no serial number wont do you any good. Apple also frequently pushes out updates witch invalidate publicly traded serial numbers such as those found in Serial Box.

[furbyslayer]

Mac OS X doesn't really have anything in the way of DRM, however Mac OS X Server has always required a serial number to install. Having installation media with no serial number wont do you any good. Apple also frequently pushes out updates witch invalidate publicly traded serial numbers such as those found in Serial Box.

Thankfully that changed with Lion Server, of course so did the product itself (not all for the better) I hope I haven't made any typos because I don't want to p!55 off the english majors out there...