The Unofficial Fusion 2023 Tech Preview Companion Guide

[Technogeezer]

(Updated 14-Sep-2023)

You may not have asked for it, but here it is anyway. 

The Unofficial Fusion 2023 Tech Preview Companion Guide is an addendum to the official Fusion 2023 Tech Preview Testing Guide provided by VMware. It contains useful information about creating and running virtual machines on Apple Silicon Macs, and contains updated procedures for Windows 11 ARM based on the new features of the 2023 Tech Preview.

Important: This Guide is only for use with the Fusion 2023 Tech Preview. If you are using Fusion 13, please use the guide found at https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Documents/The-Unofficial-Fusion-13-for-Apple-Silicon...

V4 adds back content now that Canonical has fixed issues with Ubuntu Desktop 32.10 (Mantic Minotaur) arm64 daily development builds. They now work!

I hope you will find this helpful. Reply to this post with any issues you may find in the document or suggestions you have for improving it.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Thanks much for this!

For folks seeing the thread, it's highly recommended to use these instructions over the official ones to get the ISO to install windows.  That's the only way you get a non-expiring, current build from a trusted source.

Also, I had major video and other issues upgrading my fusion 13 windows VMs.  If you see that, would suggest just building a new VM from scratch using these instructions.

[todivefor]

We have come a long way since the first TP! I just followed it to install a new clean W11 on 2023 TP. The new download script is a no brainer! Especially compared to all the other methods we used to use. Then the correct place to install the tools without any hacks to bypass networking. Thank you @Technogeezer for all you do.

[slgarwood]

Just as a warning - Debian 12 ARM with KDE locks the whole VMware app up on shutdown.

[Technogeezer]

I'm not seeing that on a freshly installed Debian 12 VM with KDE and using sddm as the login manager. I have both open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop installed. Behaves fine both with and without 3D acceleration enabled.

Anything special about your VM configuration?

[simon671]

Just discovered that when Fusion is running my Mac mini m1 won't connect to Homepods,

[ColoradoMarmot]

That's been fixed in the tech preview.  If you're still seeing it, might be worth doing a full uninstall/reinstall.

[simon671]

Well thats was fun.  Did a full unistall/reinstall as suggested.  Much more difficult/longer than the first time.  Did not want to install the tools.  And after all that it still won't connect to homepods while fusion is running.

[Technogeezer]

---

@simon671 wrote:

Well thats was fun.  Did a full unistall/reinstall as suggested.  Much more difficult/longer than the first time.  Did not want to install the tools.  And after all that it still won't connect to homepods while fusion is running.

---

It's not totally clear from what you write here, but can I assume you did a full uninstall of your existing Fusion version (without touching the virtual machine) according to https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1017838 then installed the 2023 Tech Preview?  - not simply reinstalling Fusion 13.

Could you also indicate what was "more difficult/longer than the first time"?

[simon671]

I didn't follow the KB article to uninstall Fusion, because I couldn't find it.  I did search for it but no luck.  So that may be a problem.

It took all day to reinstall, mainly due to my computer not allowing me to run setup.ps1, or any other commands from the powershell, even though I was logged in as admin.  I tried everything I could find in the forum and no luck.  Eventually had to use the instructions in VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2023.

I followed The Unofficial Fusion 2023 Tech Preview Companion Guide, but I have obviously done something wrong as I still have version 13.0.2.

Please excuse me as I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Thanks for your help and patience.

[simon671]

Trying again.

I've downloaded the Tech Preview from the link, VMware-Fusion-e.x.p-20486664_universal.

When i run it, it opens as Fusion 12, seems weird, and asks for a license.

I click the link for a free license and the one it provides doesn't work.

[todivefor]

@simon671  You are not getting the 2023 Tech Preview. It should be VMware-Fusion-e.x.p-22068932_universal.dmg. From here: https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=FUS-TP2023

[simon671]

Thank you.  That worked just like advertised.

I did have a few issues when installing the DMG.  It kept saying file not found, but after deleting everything a few times it worked.

Thanks again.

[ColoradoMarmot]

That's really odd - did you happen to get a screen shot of when/where that error happened?

If you download the DMG, and double click the installer, it should work just fine.

[simon671]

I didn't get a screen shot, but it was just before the window opens where you drag and drop the windows iso over.

Took a few attempts, deleting everything and a few restarts to get it to work.

[kitenski]

Has anyone seen issues after cleanly removing the previous version of Fusion on Apple silicon following these steps How to Uninstall VMware Fusion Manually (1017838)

I then get the message to upgrade the encryption scheme on my previous virtual machine, but that fails with this message:

[Technogeezer]

Known issue (been reported several times in this forum).

VMware is investigating.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Honestly, there are issues with the upgrade anyway (video artifacts).  If you can, I'd recommend building a new one from scratch using the unofficial guide instructions.

[kitenski]

thanks, that is what I've done and so far so good!

[Technogeezer]

I've updated the Tech Preview Companion to reflect the availability of CrystalFetch to obtain Windows 11 ARM ISO media. 

The updated document can be found in the first post in this thread.