BSOD Blue Screen of Death in your Virtual Machine using Fusion and Windows 7

Ahhh VMware Fusion and Windows 7.  The thought must upset the stomach of a hard-core Windows zealot but is a blessing for those who prefer Macs and can’t part ways with the other platform.  Personally I use and enjoy both 😉

So if you have recently found yourself reinstalling Windows 7 you might be staring at the gruesome and frightening “Blue Screen of Death” (no upgrade for this in Win7 huh?).

Fear not though there is a quick fix for you.

What happened?

When you reinstalled Windows you overwrote your Boot Camp partition.  When VMware Fusion first sets up your Boot Camp based virtual machine it needs to do a one-time configuration/prep.  Since VMware does not know that your install has been updated it happily will try to start it up.  This is where things deteriorate of course.  So to fix this problem delete your virtual machine.  Click the Home button, and select the option to “Run Windows from your Boot Camp Partition”.  This should trigger Fusion to prep your install for use.  After that you should be able to get back into Windows again!

Screen shot 2009-12-22 at 8.30.00 PM

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