[dardens]

Here's my successful experience with running a number of NMEA apps on a Mac Pro: the applications being MacENC on Mac OS and several on XP, including MaxSea, Endeavour 5.5, Airmail, Nebula and others.

I'm running Fusion 2.0.4 on XP Pro SP 3 on OS 10.5.7. Under Fusion I've been successful with simultaneous usage of up to COM 24 supported by 3 different serial interfaces. Active COMs are typically about 10. I also typically have at least 4 different USB devices running on VMware, 2 of which are USB dongles.

The three interfaces are:

Edgeport/8 = 8 port USB (XP only)
Keyspan USA49WG = 4 port USB (XP and Mac OS)
GpsGate, a virtual port sharing utility - which "clones" a single port to a number of virtual COMs (XP only)

I've been very impressed with how robust the VMware Fusion support of USB and USB-attached serial devices. I haven't run Parallels for a while so I can't comment on how solid their USB support is today. I made the switch from Parallels to VMware about July 2008 when VMware was significantly more robust.

[Jim Innes]

I couldn't agree more. If your going to run Windows virtually, then VMWare is the best option.

[Jim Innes]

Steve I'm using VMWare Fusion and a ICOM M802/pactor II usb (III) pro.

Can you post what your airmail settings are for email and fax.

Thanks,

Jim

[jagasail]

Steve,
Have you tried this with Win7? I loaded Snow Leopard then Win 7 (a clean install) on Fusion 3.01, and it brought my Macbook to a virtual standstill. Fortunately I still have my XP SP3 VM on an external drive and it's running fine with Snow Leopard.

Scot