One Reason NOT to upgrade to 64bit Mode in Snow Leopard

VIRTUAL MACHINE SUPPORT!

After posting the roundup of issues with the release along with the hint on how to force 64bit mode a number of readers and colleagues noted that VM support was absent in the musing. After some post analysis it does appear that the Virtual Machine market in the 64bit host arena is very weak when it comes to this support.

Crossover Mac (the WINE port), has a number issues while VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, and Parallels may not even launch and this is not to mention the few others that are in the consumer market. Suggestion for now. If you need to run a consumer virtual machine on your Mac, then wait to force your copy of Snow Leopard to boot into 64Bit mode. Let it run in 32bit mode and you will be fine for now. Those who use these tools in the enterprise will find that the running VMware Fusion and Parallels does have support under the Snow Leopard Server version but this would not be something a consumer wants to tote around on a MacBookPro.

Stay tuned more to come

-ZuCom