Release candidate

VMWare Fusion, the virtualization tool that allows Windows and other operating system applications to run within Mac OS X, has arrived at release candidate stage and is now feature complete. The new version offers improvements to the "Unity" mode, similar to Parallels coherence, allowing the running of Windows applications alongside Mac applications, not within a separate window. There is now the ability to drag and drop files from Finder windows onto Windows applications or Windows Explorer windows, and there is also experimental support for Unity on Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit), and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit). VMWare is priced at $40 prior to release, and requires an Intel-based Mac as well as Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or later.

Improvements have also been made to the Launch Applications window and Application menu: Windows program icons now appear in the Launch Applications window and the Applications menu. Numerous bugs involving keyboard issues, display redrawing, minimizing to the dock, and window ordering have also been fixed in this release. Other useful new features include a hidden option to always show the Windows task bar in Unity. To enable this option, see Using Unity View.

by MacNN Staff