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sinister69
Contributor
Contributor

Migrating to Mojave from Sierra - will vm open and run OK?

Morning all

As title really, will my VM created under Sierra using Fusion 10.1.5 open and run OK if I switch to Mojave? When I tested ages ago moving from Sierra to High Sierra on an older non critical Mac it wouldn't open the existing VM in HS, which I speculated was something to do with the newer file structure that HS and newer uses compared to pre HS?

I can't have the Mac I'm using as my primary machine unable to run the existing VM, so is there anything I can do to prep the VM for migration or is the different file structure an unavoidable problem? Or will I have to make a fresh VM once Mojave is installed (really don't want to have to do this!)

Many thanks for looking

S

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

The short answer is: yes it will work fine.

When I tested ages ago moving from Sierra to High Sierra on an older non critical Mac it wouldn't open the existing VM in HS, which I speculated was something to do with the newer file structure that HS and newer uses compared to pre HS?

I am not sure what happened for you, but moving from Sierra to High Sierra should also not have been a problem. It certainly has nothing to do with the file system change from HFS+ to APFS. If that was the case then all programs would have had problems.

There are a couple of scenarios I can come up with that might have caused this issue:

- You tried to startup a VM with a version of VMware Fusion that did not run under High Sierra. As VMware Fusion is tightly coupled with the operating system, upgrading to a new version of macOS usually also means having to upgrade to a new version of VMware Fusion. Apple just tends to make too many changes under the hood to have VMware Fusion work flawlessly. So while VMware Fusion 10.x might work on macOS Mojave, only VMware Fusion 11.x is supported. Likewise for High Sierra, VMware Fusion 8.x was not supported.

- You did a fresh install of High Sierra and wiped your disk, then tried to retrieve your VM from a Time Machine backup. Unfortunately Time Machine is not a reliable backup mechanism for virtual machines and while you might have thought that you got the complete latest VM, it was a damaged or incomplete copy (for more details about this, see this article at my site: https://www.vimalin.com/why-is-time-machine-not-a-good-backup-for-virtual-machines/ )

My main recommendation is to make a good backup of your important VM before you update to macOS Mojave.

To do so manually you can use these steps:

- shut down (not suspend) the VM

- commit any snapshots you still might have

- close VMware Fusion so that it is no longer running

- copy the whole VM bundle to an external disk

- disconnect that disk, then upgrade to macOS Mojave

(edit)

If the VM is not at the computer after the upgrade then:

- copy the VM back to the computer, use File -> Open to open the VM

- If VMware Fusion asks if you copied it or moved it, select "Moved It" as otherwise you will have to re-activate windows VMs because they will end up getting a new set of hardware identifiers.

You can also use Vimalin (the virtual machine backup software I wrote) for this type of purpose.

Hope this helps,

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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sinister69
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Wila, great to hear from you again (you have always replied to every question I've posted!!)

Thanks for the info.

Last question - is my version of Fusion OK (10.1.5) or do I need to upgrade to the latest for 100% compatibility with Mojave?

Thanks again

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Yes I think I answered some of your questions before as I recognized the community handle Smiley Happy and you are welcome.

Please note that I edited the answer above to add a few more steps.

re. can you use VMware Fusion 10.x

That might work, there certainly are a number of people down here who have said to use VMware Fusion 10.x on macOS Mojave without any ill side effects.

This is usually only the people who upgrade to Mojave, not people who try to install VMware Fusion 10 fresh.

Having said that, the only supported VMware Fusion version on macOS Mojave is Fusion 11.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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sinister69
Contributor
Contributor

Many thanks again.

I'll get cracking then :smileygrin:

Mods please close this thread.

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