How to install VMware tools within Microsoft Vista?

I've used both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion for quite a while and have had generally good success with both of them so I don't know that one is dramatically better than the other. One good thing: both companies are determined to win this race so both are constanlty pushing out updates, tweaks and performance enhancements, which is a great boon to customers.

Having said that, I will also say that my experience with Windows Vista is that it requires so many resources that it's a tough operating system to run with any sort of decent performance within a virtualization environment. I have much better luck with Windows XP, as do most Mac users who need to delve into the PC universe on occasion.

The good news is that the general steps required to install the VMware tools -- which let the Windows OS interact more successfully with your Mac peripherals and lets you have any arbitrary size window as your Windows screen size -- is the same for just about any version of Windows you might want to run.

The first step is to launch Windows Vista within VMware, then choose "Install VMware Tools" from the "Virtual Machine" menu:

Choose this option and now it's just a matter of stepping through a bunch of screens:

Are you sure you want to improve the performance of your virtual system? Of course you are! Click "Install" to continue, and ...

Now we encounter our first Vista security warning. As you might know, Vista has far more built-in security than XP ever had. Which is good. Unless you're trying to do something yourself. At this point, click on "Run setup.exe":

Wait, did you really want to do that? Let's double check!

Okay, I'll believe you. Let's run an installer, which starts with an unpacking process, as you're doubtless already quite familiar with...

Modify, Repair or Remove. Since you haven't installed the tools before, choose "Modify" (which is a bit confusing. I wish for an "Install" option here, but that's another story).

Finally the good stuff. What parts of the VMware Toolbox do you want to install? I suggest you install everything, including device drivers, the toolbox, shared folder support and the rest of it.

A few more "Next" clicks and you'll find yourself with a fully installed toolkit.

How will you know? A new tiny icon shows up on your Vista toolbar:

That's all there is to it. Good luck with Vista!