As I use it on regular basis I can say it's good performance of using Bootcamp installed windows via VMWare Fusion 3.
Here is process I followed.
- Make a bootcamp partition using Bootcamp Assistant for the space.
- Install the Windows XP version.
- Open the VMware and select the bootcamp partition, when you create a new virtual machine for Windows.
- VMWare installs few utilities on the bootcamp partition, to use it to boot via Fusion.
- Once all this is done, you can launch this windows version like a normal virtual machine in Fusion.
If I want a lite usage of windows I will boot via Fusion, if I want to run heavy programs then I will boot into Bootcamp, but I rarely does it, as Fusion VM is 99% OK for me for all activities including development with Eclipse.
I've used raw disk access under VMWare Fusion. It's less than intuitive, but it works. The helper app (and google-fodder) is /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator.
Important: Consider this a "from-memory, basic idea of what the process requires", rather than a howto - please do google for "fusion vmware-rawdiskcreator" to find a proper walkthrough if you choose to go this route. I can't promise my memory is accurate enough to trust your partitions to.
The biggest catch is that it won't find the partition unless it's been previously booted with Boot Camp, or you've used rEFIt's partitioning tool to sync the MBR. vmware-rawdiskCreator reads the partition list from the MBR, which isn't otherwise kept in sync with the GPT (bios partition tables vs EFI partition tables).
Try:
$ /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator print /dev/disk0
Nr Start Size Type Id System
-- ---------- ---------- ---- -- ------------------------
1 1 976773167 BIOS EE Unknown
(disk0 is your first disk). If you get similar results to mine (one big partition type'd BIOS), you don't have the MBR synced with GPT. rEFIt (refit.sf.net) is my preferred way to do this, but bootcamp will do it for OSes it supports.
If you do get a list of usable partitions, you then need to create a vmdk (VMware's disk format) pointing to the right partition. This is done with
$ sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 n Filename lsilogic
Where /dev/disk0 is the physical disk containing the partition, n is the partition number listed by the first command (print /dev/disk0), and Filename is what you want to call the resulting disk image.
You can then change ownership of the two files it creates (Filename.vmdk and Filename-pt.vmdk), and use them as existing disk images when creating a VM.
Not so straight-forward :) It does work though; I've used this method to install linux on a machine that has a dead optical drive.
Best Answer
As you've pointed out, there is plenty of virtualisation software. However, the most famous are Parallels and VMware Fusion (the other ones I haven't used, so I can't give you an opinion about them).
In my opinion, Parallels is the more robust one and gives me the best performance. There are a lot of online battles going one between both camps and there both apps have their (dis)advantages. For me, Parallels is the best way to go, because it has the most functions.
For most people it's a close race and they let the price decide. Both companies often hold special sales, so you should look for those kind of things.