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VMWare Fusion 4 Black Screen Workaround on OSX Lion

October 15, 2011October 15, 2011 The Webernets3 Comments

If your like me and run Windows on your Mac using VMWARE Fusion, you have probably been getting really frustrated lately at the blank black screen you see when you try to run your virtual machine. I haven’t found a permanent fix for this, and I hope the folks at VMWare are looking into it, but I have found a workaround, which has worked for me.

TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK – I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU BREAK SOMETHING – THIS IS MERELY A RECOUNT OF HOW I WAS ABLE TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE – YOUR RESULTS MAY BE VERY DIFFERENT!!!

I have performed this workaround not only on my Macbook Pro, but on my Mac Pro as well – it worked in both instances.

To begin, I went back to VMWare’s site HERE and re-downloaded VMWare Fusion 4 (I use the lite version without McAfee)

Once the download was complete, I mounted the .dmg and tried to simply drop the app icon onto the Applications Folder……..FAIL!

I cant stress enough, I accept NO responsibility if you try this and it fails for you ok!

At this point I opened up my Applications folder and dragged the VMWare app to the trash – I had to type in my admin password before the system allowed this. Initially I was worried that my license would get deleted as well, but I had a hunch the license would be stored elsewhere deeper in the bowels of my Mac, so I pressed on.

After the app was successfully moved to the trash, I was able to drag the VMWare logo from the .dmg into the Applications folder. Again, I was asked to type in my Admin password.

Once it had completed copying, I unmounted the .dmg, and clicked the icon in my dock to boot my Windows XP Virtual Machine. An alert popped up telling me that VMWare had to update some resources, and again I had to type my Admin password……………..AND THEN…..

LOOKIN GOOD……………….

YES! Back in the game!

Since I discovered this workaround about 10 days ago, my Mac Pro hasn’t skipped a beat. I updated my Macbook Pro last night with new iCloud features, and my Virtual Machine Black Screened again this morning. So I re-tried the work around for the creation of this article and It worked again for the second time.

I know its a pain to perform, but it did work for me, and if I have to choose between not using my Virtual Machine at all, or spending three minutes performing the workaround to get going again, I know what I would prefer to do.

Lets hope the folks at VMWare sort this one out soon!

Mac OSX Lion broke my Gigabit Network!

August 11, 2011October 22, 2011 The Webernets4 Comments

I have just been trying to shift some large files around my home network, and found the transfer speeds to be down on what I am used to.So I set about finding out what the problem was. I started by opening the system preferences, and clicked the Network icon.In the left side window I had to highlight the connected Ethernet port (the one with the green circle next to it), as my machine has two ports, and the one that wasn’t connected was selected when I opened the window as shown below. Once I selected the connected port, I clicked the Advanced button to open up all the good stuff.

From here, I clicked the Hardware button to see what was going on. As expected, my machine had auto-negotiated a 100MBPS connection, instead of the much faster 1000MBPS Gigabit connection I have come to love so much.So once I changed Automatic, to Manual, and selected 1000MBPS with Full Duplex, flow control, and set my MTU to Jumbo 9000 (Where it has always been), I saved the settings, rebooted and was ready to enjoy my super-fast network!

Huh? What? Why? – Then the expletives came! Why wasn’t my Gigabit connection working? – I went back in and found the Green circle was gone – Replaced with a very unattractive and disheartening RED circle! A desperate flurry of disconnections, reconnection and more expletives occurred. Sitting helplessly on the floor next to my Gigabit switch, head in hands, my attention was drawn to the pretty color cables…….

This post is dedicated to that gorgeous yellow ethernet cable. Oh yellow ethernet cable, how I love you! It turns out that for some reason, Lion doesnt recognise the 33 miles of blue Cat 5(e) cable I have running around the house as Gigabit capable like Snow Leopard used to! I removed the blue cable, and plugged a black CAT 6 cable I had (Which I never really understood why it was different until today) and beautiful Green lights lit up everywhere! In my connections window, on the switch, it was SUCH a relief!

After a bit of Googling, I learned quiet a few people are having this problem, and not all cables are created equal.

The short solution to the problem is change your cables to Cat 6, and for the reason why (if you are interested in the nuts and bolts) can be found in THIS article on Answers.com.

**UPDATE**

22OCT11 – Apple appear to have rectified this issue in the latest update to OSX Lion (10.7.2) – I have been using my Macbook Pro at Gigabit speed using blue cat 5 cable for a few days now. Can anybody else confirm?

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