The MacWinGuy's Blog

I’ve now switched from Fusion to Parallels.  Too much hanging with Fusion. Let’s see how it goes and I’ll report back.

I’ve been using VMWare Fusion and OS X 10.8.3 for a while now.  I’ve got the big Retina (768GB SSD, 16GB Ram, 2.6Ghz).  Still, with two cores set to windows 8 pro, I get hanging when I try and go back and forth between the VM (full screen, two monitors) and OS X.

I’ve had a VMWare support call going for about 2 weeks now. They have looked at my logs, tried a bunch of stuff but nothing helps. It still gets these 5 to 10 second pauses about 10 times a day at least (I usually stay on the windows side but I still get pauses sometimes there).

I recently took my Retina to a mac store to have them run diag’s. Who knows, maybe it was broken.  They ran there in store diags and discovered the camera was broken but no errors on anything else.

They suggested I part with my Retina for 3 to 7 days and they would send it to the repair center (free of course) and the repair center would replace the broken camera as well as run better diags on the components.

So, I bought a new Retina on Craigs List (2.8GHz, 500GB, 16GBRam) so I could keep my work life going (can’t be without a main computer and I do everything on my Retina).  One nice thing is that I could test whether my WinClone bootcamp partition backup was really working (yes it does).

Four days later, I get it back from Apple.  They replaced the screen, all the memory and the motherboard.

Still though, same problem with VMWare Fusion hanging.

At least my camera works now (and time to sell the 1 week old faster Retina, but I have to say I could not tell a difference in the speed.  I certainly did miss the hard disk size though).

I recently upgraded my retina to OS X 10/8.3 and Fusion 5.0.3.  Though lots of issues installing bootcamp and windows 8, I did pick up a very handy short cut. 

Control-Command-F

Toggles between full screen mode and single screen mode.  The reason I need it is because the normal vmware fusion menu is gone from my vmware session in full screen mode.

More details here

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2212835#2212835

The other reason I need it is because snagit does not work with screen captures when in dual screen mode. Now, it’s easy to pop back and forth between dual screen mode and single window mode, do my snagit (as above), then go back again.

I’ve been having tons of issues with hanging and crashing with m Retina using VMWare Fusion.  I just read that Apple released 10.8.3 today and decided to call vmware and ask about it and if they had a fix that would work with it.

THEY SAID YES! and they said it was safe.

So, I upgraded everything this morning (after backing up).  Everything upgraded flawlessly.  So far, no crash or hang.

I understand this supports windows 8 with bootcamp.  Will try that later.

Keeping my fingers crossed

I’m a happy VMware Fusion user except for sometimes.  As I said in my previous post.

http://macwinguy.com/2012/12/vmware-fusion-and-macbook-air-and-macbook-pro-update-2-0-big-fail/

There is a nasty bug that happens if you apply the latest OSX patches for my Macbook Retina.  The way to avoid the problem is to turn Graphics Acceleration off inside of VMware setup.  Turns out, after upgrading to the latest Microsoft Office 2013, there is another bug which causes the screen to make funny flashes while you are working.  I contacted VMware and they logged into my system and added the following two magic parameters to my vmx file for my windows 8 VM.  It seems to have solved the problem.

vmgl.GL_ARB_map_buffer_range = "FALSE"
vmgl.GL_APPLE_flush_buffer_range = "FALSE"

* the vmx file is located where you launch your vm from.  on my system, it is

/Users/macwinguy/Documents/Virtual Machines/win8rtm/Windows8x64R.vmwarevm
retina-2:Windows8x64R.vmx

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for Apple to provide to huge companies like VMWare with popular programs such as VMWare fusion a little heads up when they release a core graphics driver.  Last week, I downloaded a small update for my MacBook titled “MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 2.0”

After installing, my vmware fusion kept crashing.  Sadly, the backup gods were not my friend and after a series of failed time machine restore and a wasted 8 hours I finally got most of my data back.

The issue is still out there in a big way.  Apparently everyone still knows about it and nothing is being done!

“This Issue Is Under Investigation”

Very Aggravating.  I hope my mac does not auto update this one.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2040249

I recently had a dust up on twitter regarding docking station with some of my Windows buddies.  They point out that our MacBooks do not support a docking station and you have to plug in “all those cables”.  For me, I plug in power and two monitor cables.  Seems to me not like a big deal.  I understand that the reason for not offering a doc is mostly around the weight and size requirements to beef up the bottom of the notebook.

What does everyone else think?  Dock?  No Dock?  Who cares, if Apple does not provide it then we don’t need one?

Here are some short cuts I just learned:

• Select one row:   Control-Option-Click  (same as control-click on PC)
• Delete Text:  function-delete (acts like windows delete, instead of backspace)
• Move to End of line: function-right arrow
• Move to Start of line: function-left arrow
• Ctrl-Shift-Eject: Blanks the screen without sleeping macbook

Thanks to my secret friend Paul (who also uses a MAC) for the tips

So, I have to say that almost all my Apple interactions have been good (until yesterday).  About 2 months ago, I bought the most expensive laptop I’ve ever purchased.  A Retina fully loaded.  Over $4000 and not only that, I plunked down another few hundred for Apple Care.

So, I’d heard that there was a new version of OSX (Mountain Lion) coming out that was designed to better support the Retina display that I have.  My computer works and I’ve been on some pretty busy projects so I did not want to update until things calmed own a little.  Well, now is the time.

So, I look on the “update” menu and it’s not there.  I call Apple Care and they tell me that had I updated last week it would have been free but now I have to pay and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that.  Sorry they say.

WOW!

So, on my eval for the call I said this:

“Pigs Get Fed, Hogs Get Slaudered.  Which one are you Apple?”

Just Sayin…

About a month ago, I spent the big bucks and bought the new Retina.  Biggest one available minus .1 Ghz (2.6Ghz verses 2.7Ghz).  Well, all I can say is

WOW!

I don’t even want to think about how much money I spent and have not yet purchased the $300 extended warranty (which I probably should do).  I partitioned it with 500GB for my windows 8 bootcamp partition and 250 or so for OSX.  I still have two monitors I usually work on and since Windows 8 will not drive the second thunderbolt monitor when booting from bootcamp, I find myself 95% of the time running VMWare fusion accessing the bootcamp partition.  Also, the blue tooth drivers for the external keyboard and mac don’t seem to work when booting from the windows partition directly.

So, here are some random observations

• Running Windows 8 On Retina Native Display is awesome
• On Retina Display with Windows 8 I use 150% font size an it works well
• Keyboard and Mouse don’t work with Windows 8 Native but do with VMWare
• It is amazingly not gravity challenged
• It’s nice having two thunderbolt ports
• When backing up to super fast external drive, thunderbolt external monitor does not slow down like on my previous Macbook
• Bluetooth keyboard and Bluetooth track pad go through batteries about once a month (random thought, but annoys me)
• VMWare is very sold running windows 8 on Retina
• I have not had one OS crash!!!
• I have no regrets (and no left over money either)
• Battery Life is about the same as my previous 17” macbook  (last one made)