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[Calvin_Zhang]

Hello VMWare Team,

Recently, I just had upgraded my VMware from Fusion 8 to VMware Fusion Pro 10 on my mid-2010 iMac. But I could not start any vm after the upgrade, it throws me with this error message

The Specs of my iMac is

I am wondering if it has a work around? Any help will be appreciated.

Calvin

[ngrison · Accepted solution]

I found out the hard way too. Funny thing is that Fusion itself suggested the upgrade to Fusion 10, the installer installed with no warning and replaced Fusion 8.5.8 with Fusion 10, the app launches without any problem, and it's only when trying to run VMs that you find out that it's not working. Appaling of VMware not to check and warn the user that this version is incompatible.

VMware has changed the hardware requirements for Fusion 10 and mid-2010 iMacs are now unsupported. I just wish that the installer checked that before...

From https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2005196 Fusion 10 has the following requirements:

• All Macs launched in 2011 or later are supported except:
  2012 Mac Pro “Quad Core” using the Intel® Xeon® W3565 Processor.
• In addition the following are supported:
  2010 Mac Pro “Six Core”, “Eight Core” and “Twelve Core”.

The requirements for Fusion 8 are:

• Any 64-bit capable Intel Mac (compatible with Core 2 Duo, Xeon, i3, i5, i7 processors or better)

I have found one workaround. Quit Fusion 10 and create the file if it doesn't exist:

/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/config

In this file add the line:

monitor.allowLegacyCPU = "true"

I can launch VMs after that though it stops working when using certain settings so it's far from bullet proof.

[Calvin_Zhang]

Thank you for the response ngrison,

I am very disappointed at VMWare at this point, they should give us some kind of error messages before the upgrade such as "Your system is not compatible..etc.." Even Windows OS Upgrade has the courtesy to check the hardware for you first. Anyways, thank you for the info again.

Calvin

[jchivian]

I found out the hard way as well.  I consider it predatory of VMware to recommend the upgrade, collect money for the upgrade, install the upgrade, and then say "Oh sorry, we can't run it (because you're too old)."  Why did you recommend it to me in the first place if I'm too old?

Absolutely Unacceptable!

I have successfully reverted back to 8.5.8 but consider their choosing to software abandon a quad-core i7-860 to be bordering on criminal.

[tzs]

Same problem on my 2009 Mac Pro, which has a Xeon.

I assumed it would work because on the system requirements section of the upgrade page it says

• 64-bit Intel based Mac. (Compatible with Core 2 Duo, Xeon, i3, i5, i7 processors or better)

Oh well. Reverting to 8 is easy. Just download the installer and run it. As far as I can tell you don't have to uninstall 10 first, although personally I would uninstall 10 first just to be safe.

[falgout]

Disappointed is an understatement.  I was running fine on 12, upgraded to 14, now machines I had operated before stopped working.  Not use to being blindsided or not able to trust that an upgrade will not kill the entire product.  Does anyone know or see an option to setting up legacy cpu emulations, or is it only modify the config file.

[Calvin_Zhang]

Modified the config file seems to work, but it does cause extremely slow startups on vms on my machine.....

I did a search on the legacy cpu emulations, i could not find anything that related to Legacy..DynamoRIO API: CPU Simulator

[Stacy_Kenworthy]

I faithfully upgrade to VMWare Fusion Pro 10 on my trusty old mid-2010 iMac that I use as a home server.  Personally, I am appalled that the installation didn't warn me that none of my VM's would launch after the upgrade.  Is it that hard to check to the hardware for compatibility before proceeding with an installation?

I do, however,  accept responsibility for not checking the hardware requirements before upgrading and admit to being lulled into a false sense of security by VMWare's heretofore excellent track record of engineering. My mistake completely.

That being said, I have VMWare to thank for finally getting to purchase and test out Parallels and other options!  I wouldn't have had any reason to do so except that I wasn't quite ready to update my trusty older hardware that runs my VMs slowly but reliably, which is all I need on this box. 

I am also trying out VirtualBox and even QEMU on Mac and so far they all seem to do work well for my basic needs.   So my horizons have been expanded and all it took was a not so gentle shove in the right direction. I'll keep using VMWare, or course, but I plan to make sure I always have a back up option in place and, who knows, I may switch over in full if VMWare support continues to be lacking...