Hi,
I'll apologise in advance if this information is already available elsewhere in the forums or on the VMWare site but, try as I might, I cannot find it.
I am running WinXP SP3 under Fusion 3 on a MacBook Pro (OSX 10.6.8) and have been doing so quite happily for a several years. I have an upgrade to Fusion 5 Pro that I never got round to installing since everything was working fine as it was. However, with the cessation of XP support and the need to update Mac OSX for other reasons I am trying to figure out the best way forward. The issue is further complicated by the fact that I also run a WinXP SP3 desktop and need to upgrade/replace this machine as well, since it is running out of puff.
The need for XP is because I run Quicken (plus one or two other things) on both machines and I need/want to continue to do so for the forseeable future. The Quicken UK version has been unsupported for some time and the only version available to me runs under Win XP. I would happily bring the MacBook Pro up-to-date on both OSX and Fusion and am seriously considering replacing the Windows PC with an iMac running Fusion/WinXP. However, this really only seems worth doing, if Fusion continues to support a WinXP guest.
So my question is this: Have VMWare issued a clear position statement on their continued support for XP guest machines? If I used the The Compatibility Guide correctly, it seemed to suggest that both Fusion 5 & 6 currently support XP, but I am not clear whether it is planned for this to continue into the future. Indeed, comments on one forum discussion indicated that XP support is to be dropped.
As I always expected might be the case, I can no longer stay where I am, but without some confidence about the ongoing viability of the Fusion option, there does not seem to be a very attractive way forward either. Would be grateful for any information that anyone has about VMWare's plan, if any, for XP going forward, or any other suggestions about how to solve this problem.