VMware runs slowly

Right there is No Wireless option. The VM see any Host connection as the Only connection. My XP VM uses either the wired or wireless connection from the Host as a Wired connection. In the XP VM look in Control Panel, Network connections and you should see under "Name" Local Area Connection, "Type" Lan or High-Speed Internet, "Status" Connected, "Device Name" VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter. It is a Virtual Network Interface Card (NIC). It uses whatever network connection the Host is using.

To Ping the router open a XP Command Prompt. It is in Accessories (Start, Programs, Accessories). Once that is open type Ping (Space) 192.168.1.1 and hit the enter key. you should see something like this.

In Internet Explorer you should not have to setup a connection.

In Network Connections (Control Panel, Internet connections) Right click on the Local Area connection and select properties. In the properties windows that comes up put a check mark in Show Icon in Notifications Area When connected. Then close that. you should now see a icon in the Clock area (notifications area) of the start bar that looks like two monitors one overlayed over the other. When you click on it the Status Window should open. Go to the Support tab and you should see "Address Type" Assigned by DHCP, "IP Address" 192.168.1.XX, "Subnet Mask" 255.255.255.0 and "Default Gateway" 192.168.1.1 (Which is the IP address of your router). If all that is there your VM is connected and you should be able to access the internet. If you still can't then it may be a setting on your Router.

dsacchetti wrote:

appears I have 72GB assigned to the Hard drive for VM.

Well that explains it, that's a large amount if your not using it, especially if your saving "snapshots"

VM should be expanding the guest OS disk space as needed.

The problem is with large files, they cross more sectors on a hard drive and thus prone to having problems if they come across one that is failing.

If you can copy most of your personal files off the computer to a storage drive, then reboot so OS X recognizes the new free space, then use Disk Utility to Erase Free Space > Zero and let that complete, it will attempt to map off as many failing sectors on your unused space as possible

When complete, copy your files back into their respective folders and that should cure the problem.

Reducing bad sectors effect on hard drives

Another good tip, especially with Windows VM, is to have a pristine copy that was never used for surfing online or for transferring unclean files and use Windows Update on that version.

It's a bit hard as you first have to save your Windows files of a later snapshot to a external source, then restore and Update the pristine copy, save that snapshot, use a copy of it, then scan your files for malware before returning them.

The object is your only using a updated Windows completely free of any malware, even stuff you don't know about yet.

With patch Tuesday being only once a month, I do this procedure then. This way I'm always using a really perfect and a secure version of Windows online as possible.

Trusted programs will of course have to tag along with the pristine copy and be updated as well.

What version of VMware Fusion are you using?

I'm running the lastest version with XP, Vista, Win 7 64B, Win 8 64B and Mint12 without any real lag. But I do have a Seagate XT drive and 8GBs RAM on a 15" late 2011 MBP.

Shut down the VM and reboot your Mac. See if that speeds things up. The Mac has a fairly good memory management system but it can get clogged up over time limiting access to both the Mac side and a VM.

As far as data storage on the VM disk I don't think that has much to do with it. Unless you are using the VM disk near the limits of the size you have assigned. You can increase the size of the VM disk or create another virtual disk and move some of the files into it to free up space on the boot virtual disk.

In the XP VM open Win Explorer and right click on your C drive and select Properties. That will show you the total size of the drive and how much of it is being used.

To see the actual size of, physical space used by, the virtual disk in OS X find that VHD file in OS X Finder and again right click on it and select Get Info. A windows will come up showing how much physical space that VHD file is using on your HDD.

Assigning X amount of space to a VM VHD does not take up all that space on the physical HDD. But in the VM it will always show the drive of that max size.

In my XP VM I have 3 VHD assigned, C, D and E. With the C drive being 30GB, the D and E being 40GB each. The physical space used on the Mac OS X HDD is just over 11GBs. So it really doesn't matter how much space is ASSIGNED to the VHDs and it really doesn't matter if you use most of it to store files as long as you leave some room on the VHD, just like you would in a physical install of Windows on a PC hard drive, for the OS to function correctly and that you leave enough room on the Mac OS X physical HDD for OS X to function correctly.

No you don't have to back it down. Check the actual physical size of the VHD on the Mac Hard Drive, as I pointed out in my last reply. It should be below the 18GBs used in the VM as all VM VHD are compressed.

The only bad thing about VMs and VHDs is that once you store X amount of files on them, Actual size of the files in MB or GB, and you delete some of those files the actuall physical size used on the Host HDD of the VHD file does not reduce.

There are ways around that but I won't go into it in this thread.

As to not being able to connect to the internet from the VM. Do you have the VM setup to Bridge the netwrok adapter or hav is set to NAT.

NAT (Network Address Translation) is a form of firewall placing the VM on a different Subnet. Bridged is where the VM get a network address, IP address, in the same Subnet as yout host OS/computer and become part of your LAN.

If you are not doing anything special that needs the VM to be on a different subnet, on a different LAN, then you should change that setting to Bridged (if you now have it set to NAT). It makes sharing files back and forth between the VM and the Host and the rest of the LAN, your home network, much easier.

Also disable any software firewall and uninstall any and all AV programs for the VM. At least temporarily until you get the internet access from the VM fixed.

In XP what is the IP address it is getting. Then what is the IP address of your Mac OS.

Have you Rebooted the XP VM? If not do that.

What browser are you using?

Can you Ping your Routers IP address (192.168.1.1 more then likely)?

Better post your question on the VMWare forums then as it's their software you're having issues with:

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/fusion