This is not a free solution:

http://macs.about.com/od/windowsonyourmac/ss/Virtualization-Of-Leopard-And-Snow-Leopard-Using-Vmware-Fusion.htm

Hmm... it seems that VMware has removed the possibility to run older Mac OSes on Fusion - only Mac OS server systems will run.

Oh well. Thanks for the info though, brell.

You're welcome.  I have also been trying Virtualbox (open source) without success so far.

I have a backup drive with Snow Leopard on one partition, Lion on the other. Whenever I want to play MM and MM2, I switch to Snow Leopard. It's not very convenient, but it beats not being able to play it at all.
::)

Finally we have a solution.   I have already tried it and it works!

I use VirtualBox 4.1.20 and I don't know whether this works with newer versions.  Also, there is not a "shared folder" option between a Mac host and a Mac guest in VB (so far), so I found another solution to that.

Please note that VirtualBox is NOT the same as VMware's Fusion!

To do this you have to own Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a DVD.

Here is the tutorial:

http://virtualbox-snow-leopard.blogspot.com

I used Guide 2.  Please note three things:

1. You have to use the Terminal application. If you are not comfortable with that then my advice is not to try this.
2. You have to use a text editor.  If you use, say, TextEdit, the text file "OSX.vbox" will become a TextEdit document and will only open TextEdit but not Virtualbox when you double-click it.  To change that, select the document by clicking it once in Finder, then either select "File - Get info" or press command-I on the keyboard.  In the Info sheet, select the "Open with" drop down menu (where it says "TextEdit") and select "Other".  The Application folder will pop up, now at the bottom select "Enable all applications".  Scroll down to VirtualBox, select it and tick the "Always open with" checkbox.
3. The virtual machine always opens up in verbose mode but not the classic Apple style mode (with Apple logo and spinning wheel).  When you start it the first time it will take a long time before the DVD mounts.  Just be patient.  Also, the system installation takes a lot of time.

And here is how to share folders:

http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/virtual/faq/access_shared_folder.html

One more thing:  I have 8 Gb RAM and I am giving 2 Gb's to the virtual machine and it is slow.  So I don't think you should bother with any less RAM.

Discaimer: Please note that this not something that I or Vern came up with and neither of us can be held responsible if someone uses this information to be able to play MM1 original or MM2 or use the builders on a Snow Leopard virtual machine running within Lion or Mountain Lion.  Also please note that if you decide to try this you are at your own and the risk is entirely yours.

Thanks for the great information, brell.

If someone wants to use this solution to make mansions for the MM HD version:  Please note that you have to try the mansion out in the MM HD game itself.  It may not be enough to test it in the MM1 builder as the behaviour of MM1 and MM HD is not quite the same in all situations.

Good to know brell, thanks! I'm working on a new mansion (announcement coming soon!) but haven't yet figured out converting for HD.

You use Rezycle for conversion.

Again thanks brell! I still need to go back and read all the HD posts. When the mansion is ready to convert I'm sure I'll have questions  :-?

Please note that the method I described here does not work anymore, mainly because the needed version of VirtualBox is discountinued and doeasn't work anymore in modern Macs. Newer versions of VB do not run Snow Leopard, only the server version.

You might want to take a look here:

http://www.actionsoft.com/forums/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1575246056

This Topic was moved here from General Issues by brell.