Upgrading from XP to Windows 7 in Fusion 3 and Snow Leopard

Talk about complicated. Luckily I’m only running QuickBooks Pro 2010 on my Windows OS.

Through much trial and error and online research I will tell you what I discovered in a few easy steps.

1. Install VMware Fusion 3 on your Mac OS Snow Leopard. That’s fairly easy.

2. Set up a new Virtual Machine. If you have Windows XP in one Virtual Machine you can leave it there. You don’t have to back up your files or wipe your “virtual disk” clean. I’m not sure if this is approved by Windows but it works.

3. Create a new Virtual Machine and install a clean (new) version of Windows 7, not an “Upgrade”. When asked for your key, do not use your upgrade key because it won’t be accepted. Leave it blank.

4. When Windows 7 is up and running, put the Windows 7 disk back in and this time click “Upgrade”. It will see the existing Windows OS and will accept the upgrade key.

5. When installed you have to get your system activated within 30 days. And then you’re done. It worked for me and I hope it works for you.

You can get greater details by doing a little searching online. It is assumed that you have a legal version of Windows XP on your system or in your possession.

Photoshop CS4 and Snow Leopard

Photoshop CS4  is not playing nice with my Snow Leopard. If you’ve been having font issues and quitting issues it may be because your Photoshop is running in Rosetta. A little research showed that running an older Epson scanner caused my copy of Photoshop to run in Rosetta.

Sounds pretty, but suddenly I could no longer double click on a PSD file and have it open in Photoshop. Saving files sometimes caused the program to crash. And Photoshop never quit. Always had to force quit.

So if you go to “Get Info” on your Photoshop icon you will see the Running in Rosetta option checked. Uncheck it and with any luck your Photoshop will be running like it’s supposed to.

Two virus protection programs are NOT better than one.

If you’re running Windows XP and want to protect your computer from those nasty viruses, it’s advisable to run a virus protection program. I have a MacBook and I’m running Windows XP in my Parallels desktop. I installed and subscribed to Kaspersky Internet Security. Then I decided to add the free version of AVG for even more security.

Over time I noticed my computer ran slower and slower, especially when using QuickBooks. Suddenly QuickBooks would no longer open. Online research told me nothing. QuickBooks wanted about $60 for help. I opted not to call them. Out of desperation I paid $30 to Parallels only to find out that this was a Windows problem. After an hour of trying many things we discovered that running more than one virus protection program at the same time was not a good idea.

Now I only run Kaspersky and my computer is zippy once again. Lesson learned.