Last week VMware released the new 3.1 version of their Mac workstation virtualisation application and according to VMware it is better, stronger, and faster than ever before and it is a free update for all VMware Fusion 3 customers.

When I started my VMware Fusion 3 application it immediately offered to automatically download VMware Fusion 3.1.

The VMware press release states that VMware Fusion 3.1 provides 35% better end-to-end application performance compared to VMware Fusion 3.0. Windows applications launch faster and scrolling and 2D graphics in Windows Vista and 7 is almost 4x faster than VMware Fusion 3.0. Virtual machines suspend and resume faster and virtual machines are more responsive on resume.

As a relatively new Mac user I could not wait to try and indeed I can certainly confirm the ‘faster than ever‘-statement. Damn what an improvement.

So what else is new?

(more…)

The VMware Fusion Team has been working around the clock to add new features, improve performance and fix over 50 bugs to give out a very nice product to the Apple loving colleagues.

The new automatic update feature for VMware Fusion helps to keep Fusion updated easily.

Improved 3D & Video Performance: Improved WDDM driver and 3D backend improvements speed up 3D applications from 20-80% on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Video playback with Windows Media Player on Windows Vista and Windows 7 is greatly improved as well. Try it, you will love it!

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala): Full support for Ubuntu 9.10 32-bit & 64-bit editions. Just like other Linux virtual machines, they support copy and paste, drag and drop and even Unity!

Even More 64-bit Support: Networking subsystem is now 64-bit native to match 64-bit core engine released initially with VMware Fusion 3 (vmware-vmx).

Easier Move to VMware Fusion: Import standalone VHD virtual disks and Parallels Desktop 5 virtual machines into VMware virtual machines.

Improved Resume Times: For those users who suspend their virtual machines, they reduced the time required to resume your virtual machines.

Check out the announcement post here