Most of the developers run virtual guest operating systems as part of day to day development. The host OS could be either Windows, Linux or Mac, and guest could be Windows or Linux. I currently use both Parallels 4128 and VMWare Fusion on my Macbook Pro with Bootcamp Vista partition. Even though Parallels still didn’t work for me (thanks for the comment from Archy from Parallels team, but that hint also didn’t work for me), so I use VMWare Fusion to boot my Vista.

Here is the list of problems that is keep bothering me by both the virtual machines along with the Bootcamp. I wish if they could escalate them in the coming versions.

  1. When the Vista did not had a clean shutdown, the subsequent boot leads to Windows Recovery Error Console with different boot options, but BootCamp under dual boot, does not respond to any of the keyboard keys (or in other terms, keyboard is not activated). This makes the recovery console to boot to normal mode and has to wait for 28 secs as one can’t change anything. There is no such problem when running under VM. So, it might be a bootcamp issue.. I use version 1.3, so thats the latest one from Apple. You get into this Recovery Console Boot options menu only when the OS did not had a clean shutdown.
  2. When running Vista directly without any VM using Bootcamp, I noticed that when the battery goes down, there is no indicator or pre-alarm to indicate low batter level. I do have the right configuration for battery alerts. Not sure why they are not working. The laptop simply powers off when the battery goes to 0%. Not sure if its a problem with the Bootcamp or Vista.
  3. When I have the Vista OS running under VM, when the OS goes to stand-by or sleep mode, the VMWare or Parallels does not recognize this and instead thinks the OS is still running. Only option for me is to exit and start the VM, which makes the OS to boot back from the scratch but not from the stand-by mode. When running under Bootcamp, this works as expected. I think these tools should recognize this and provide a way to recover from stand-by or sleep mode.
  4. VMWare Fusion, when the guest OS is running; doesn’t accept or recognize global host OS keys. This will be handy when one uses virtual desktops so that the VM can be in one desktop and regular Mac OS on another one and can toggle to them easily. Right now, I have to move the mouse to the upper top and get the VMWare menu to be displayed; then it starts recognizing the global keys for the host OS.
  5. When connected to external display, the actual boot is not displayed on external monitor; and it only displays when the actual OS starts booting. This makes it hard if one wants to control which OS to boot.
  6. Support for the snapshots for the bootcamp version of OS could be a great addition.
  7. Support of Unity feature from VMWare Fusion for the bootcamp Vista OS could be another addition. I heard it works for XP. Not sure if Parallels coherence works with Bootcamp Vista.
  8. Macbook should be smart enough to turn off the primary display by recognizing the external display unless its in mirror mode.
  9. Bootcamp, VMWare and Parallels should recognize the Windows Vista and automatically provide a way to remap the keys in guest OS (particularly the Delete key)
  10. Finally, but not least; Apple should make iSight to actually work on Windows instead of just the driver by providing a nice UI.