impressive

[akidd]

I have been a user of both parallels and fusion from the day they were publicly announced. Each has advantages, hence using both. I wasn't expecting much with virtualbox, but I gave it a spin.

- Much smaller binaries
- (subjective) guest Windows boot time is faster
- Free (as in beer)

I believe the one thing both Parallels and Fusion have not (yet) gotten right is usability.

- I like the seemless, coherence feature - but I don't like how you access it. You have to select a running host then you can select the menu in Fusion. In parallels you can have the windows menu popup, but I have to select it on the dock and if magnification is on it is twitchy. In virtual box you only get the Windows taskbar on the desktop option (I believe) but I don't want it there. Auto-hiding it is awkward. How about something like this:

http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/J ... start2.jpg

and then

http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/J ... titled.png


Then I have Windows access from both the top and bottom of the screen in a more "OSX" metaphor?

I've suggested it to both other products, but they suggest that it doesn't work because you may have more than one Windows VM running at the same time. I believe this is easily solved by having a cascade off the menubar or taskbar that shows the menu for each respective guest. That said - how many people are going to run more than one Windows VM and want a feature like seemless mode? Maybe just a warning that says only one session can have the seemless menu.
[/img]

[akidd]

one other thing that no one has solved, and admittedly neither have I, is how to deal with the Windows notification area in a Seemless mode. Sometimes seeing it or accessing it is important.

I'd like the ability to have the taskbar popup and as soon as I click anywhere outside it it doesn't just autohide, it is removed. When notifications happen on the taskbar - how about having a osx dock icon bounce and when you click it this temporary view of the taskbar appears automatically too?