How's your experience with the Tech Preview going?

[Mikero]

The team put a lot of work into this release, and I'd love to let them know how the community feels about it!

[palter]

During @Mikero's livestream demo of the Tech Preview earliler this week, he was asked about that. He didn't rule it out and, in fact, implied they might be working on it. But, don't expect anything soon. (The discussion starts at 12:30 in the livestream replay.)

[ColoradoMarmot]

Cool, maybe they've found a way to get around the esxi tools depreciation.  That'd be really nice.

[Technogeezer]

Could it be possible that they’re using some of Apple’s tools built on Apple’s existing virtio driver support?

[Newtdude]

Many thanks to everyone for the replies.

@ColoradoMarmotAh yes, completely understand and my own feedback for VMware and @Mikero is that I just need the new macOS virtualization baked into Fusion for the development/testing of software on macOS (e.g. versions other than my host version). Icing on the cake of course would be to have some host OS integration (clipboard, shared folders, etc.) as well as some 3D acceleration, although for this last item I don't think any vendor has been able to deliver this yet.

@palter Great find and many thanks for the timestamp and link to the replay. Fingers crossed that we'll see something down the road.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Understand the desire, hopefully the fusion team will pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.  They're largely at the mercy of Apple though, and while there's improvements in Sonoma, they're still limited.

One nuance though - I would expect any future work to be on ARM.  VMWare's posted that they don't expect to do much, if any, work on Intel guest OS support.  And of course, there's zero chance of ever virtualizing non-ARM MacOS guests (not even sure we'll see Big Sur).  

[palter]

A quick note about Apple's Virtualization framework and macOS VMs on Apple silicon.

An Apple silicon macOS VM cannot login to any Apple services using your Apple ID. (You can login to Apple websites such as developer.apple.com, however.) Among other things, this means that you cannot register a macOS VM for the beta update channel. Instead, you have to either create a fresh VM for each new beta or use the hack someone discovered in the Apple Developer forums.

[Lawrence_z_Ara]

Is there OpenGL 4.3 working under Windows 11 ARM on Apple Silicon? Because I can't install Dialux software that requires OpenGL 3.2. An error "No or generic OpenGL driver found. Please install the latest OpenGL driver for your graphic hardware and restart the setup" has occurred.

I've just checked OpenGL version by 3rd party software and it says there is currently 1.1. Check box "Accelerate 3D Graphics" in Setting-Display is turned on.

I will appreciate any help.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Does Windows ARM support OpenGL itself?

[Mikero]

I'm not sure if Windows ARM supports it directly (probably?) but I know that our drivers don't.

We have to remove some of the text from the UI if we don't have that ready for when we GA.

[Lawrence_z_Ara]

I haven't realised Windows 11 ARM doesn't support OpenGL, because somehow on Parallelsit runs natively (they say currently supported level OpenGL 3.3).

Anyway I googled and there is something called as "OpenCL™ and OpenGL® Compatibility Pack" released by Microsoft. It is mapping layer OpenGL to DirectX 12 as I understand, but apparently is also works on DirectX 11.

I managed to install the CAD software (Dialux) that I mentioned earlier, but to be honest it runs very poorly, performance is under level of usability in 2D CAD window. All the app, I mean UI runs basically slow.

But hey, it runs, so maybe there is a hope for better performance in future versions of vmware.

[Fischli66]

Hi,

I am using the tech preview on a MacBook Air M1 with 8gb Ram and a Windows 11 installation. First off I am impressed by TP´s Performance. Well done. To be honest I haven´t tried software other than windows games but what's more challenging in. this environment. The only thing that bothers me is every new start of TP I need to change display resolution to 1080p by hand ... I figured out TP takes the Mac OS resolution.

Is it possible to set the windows 11 resolution to 1920x1080 by standard ?

One more thing ... sound via bluetooth is sometimes cracking .. 

Best regards and keep on the good work

Fisch

[ColoradoMarmot]

That sounds like you have the old tech preview.  Make sure you have the current one, and build a new VM following the instructions in the unofficial guide.

[Fischli66]

Hi

thanks for the early reply 😊

I use this Version:

Player-Version e.x.p (22068932)

Best regards Fisch

[ColoradoMarmot]

That's the current one.  Did you build a new VM from scratch using the unofficial guide?  There's issues upgrading the tools, so that may be what you're hitting.

[Fischli66]

Ha!

I didn't realize my post wasn't sent ...

I'll install a new VM from the scratch by using the unofficial guide... I´ll report later ... I didn't last time and went through the Odyssee with having trouble to install windows 11 because of the error of the absence of a functional internet connection... After I searched a lot the internet it finally worked with the mentioned limitations 😅

Thank you very much for your support 🙂👍

[Fischli66]

Hi ColoradoMarmot,

since I totally crashed my VM WIN11 ARM installation I took your advice to install it from the scratch using the unofficial guide let´s say a little bit more serious 😅

Yesterday I set it up and hmm what should I say ... still I had minor glitches in understanding following the installation guide but ...

I finally made it and so far it works very well ... 

The only thing that bothers me is I heard about the VM Installation will crash again once in a while because the shutdown routine is not proper ..

Is that true ?

Thanks in advance 

[Technogeezer]

The tools in the 2023 Tech Preview support hypervisor aware soft-power operations. That means that power off and suspend operations issued through the Fusion GUI are recognized by the Windows VM and the VM will be prepared properly for those  operations. No need to worry about using them. 

[Fischli66]

Thanks a lot 👍

[ColoradoMarmot]

TP hasn't had any issues with suspend or power off from the menu.

However, suspending or powering off the Mac while the VM is running has always been problematic.  It works...most of the time.  But the best practice remains to suspend or shut down the guest, wait for that to complete, then sleep or power off the mac (it's why I recommend disabling the overly aggressive power management settings on the host - specifically enable 'prevent sleep when screen blanks'.

[Fischli66]

I‘ll check the power settings on my Mac sonoma thank you… I don’t know what I’ve done wrong but I always shutdown the vm win 11 properly but I was able to crash 2 different installations… the first one was the „I do it my way“ Version second the unofficial installation with the minor glitches in understanding (and the mistake not to deinstall everything vm related). Now the 3rd installation was perfect and I made a copy of it … 

I really appreciate your support you guys 👍