Once Fusion was on my MacBookPro, I installed Windows 2000 using the Windows Easy Install method. This was not entirely hands free. At several points I had to input the serial number for the Windows disc. I also got a warning screen during the Windows install that notified me that I was about to erase everything on my harddrive. I had the option to proceed or to abort. I proceeded since it was, in reality, talking about my virtual harddrive. Once I had 2000 installed, I loaded Wordperfect 12.0, then downloaded and installed all the service packs from Corel’s website. I realized I needed to upgrade 2000, so I headed over to Microsoft’s website and went through the same routine. Now 2000 and WP are up-to-date.

During the Fusion installation, Fusion asks you to allocate memory. I recently installed 4 gigs of memory on the MBP. (I orginally purchased it with 2 gigs installed. Apple offered to upgrade the MBP to 4 gigs of memory for $700. That’s not a typo! I declined. After getting the MBP, I bought 4 gigs of memory–2 gigs on each chip–from Other World Computing for about $100 shipped. Installed last week without a hitch.) I didn’t want to give the Windows OS half my memory so I allocated 512mb. It appears to runs fine; however, I really haven’t put the virtual machine through its paces yet, so it’s likely I’ll bump that up to 1 gig and see how it does.

After installing the OS and WP, I loaded Timematters 7.0. Then I ran into my first snag. I couldn’t access my XP network when I plugged my MBP into the network at work. I could see the shared folder in Windows 2000, but none of the computers on my office network showed up in my network directory on Windows 2000. Fortunately, there’s a very easy solution.

First, be sure you have your MacBook connected to your network. (It’s easy for me to forget to plug the dang thing in. An Airport Extreme may be in my future.) Then connect to the network on your Mac by opening Finder and selecting the shared drive to which you want to connect. Then, with Fusion running, select Virtual Machine on the menu bar, then Settings, then under Removable Devices, select Network. Then click “Connect directly to the physical network (Bridged).” By default “Share the hosts’s internet connection (NAT)” had been selected. I rebooted the virtual machine (although I wasn’t prompted to do this) and when I checked my network folder, my office network appeared. Sweet! I mapped my network drive in Windows, then I opened Timematters and I was able to access the TM data files on the network. I couldn’t see the powerviews in TM but that’s only because I had the wrong file location for powerviews selected in my File Locations folder. Once I changed that setting, the powerviews appeared.

BTW, I chose Win2000 over XP just because it’s a smaller OS, probably runs a little faster than XP, doesn’t require contacting Microsoft to activate and is just as stable as XP. The tradeoff is that 2000 lacks ClearType, the main reason we upgraded when XP came out. Cleartype makes a big difference in the appearance of text onscreen. Seeing that pre-XP, DOS-like type on the monitor brings back a lot of memories. It’s nothing to look at but it’s tolerable for now. If I get to where I can’t stand it, I can always upgrade to XP.

Now that I have some apps on the virtual machine, I’ll be able to check performance against my current office setup. But I’m encouraged by my experience so far.