VMware Communities
ynsy
Contributor
Contributor

Vmware Fusion Apple Silicon Support Windows

Hello i installed vmware fusion and download windows for arm but the vmware doesn't see the vhdx extention file which is windows 10 for arm. Does it have support for windows for arm? Thanks

Reply
0 Kudos
174 Replies
Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Please read the Testing Guide, it has all of this explained...

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-for-Apple-Silicon-Tech/Fusion-Tech-Preview-Testing-Guide/ta... 

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
Reply
0 Kudos
DrBill269
Contributor
Contributor

The testing Guide explains "0" about this!

 

Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

This is what we have:

A NOTE ABOUT WINDOWS

  • Currently, Microsoft does not license or support a version of Windows that is supported on Apple devices.
  • While it may be possible to install Windows for Arm from an ISO using the “Other” guest OS type, or modifying the vmx with guestOS = "arm-windows10-64", it is not currently supported and may yield unexpected results.

 

But good point about not mentioning .vhdx import, we could add a part about not supporting that.

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
Reply
0 Kudos
zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I was playing around getting Windows 10 work after release of Fusion for Apple Silicon Tech Preview. I ran into same issue with my Win 10 ARM x64 .vhdx not being detected by VMware Fusion. I tried with downloading .iso version from uupdump[.]net (use at your own risk) and ran bash script to dl and convert to .iso. It worked, but once i tried to use it in VMware, it prompted "media driver is missing" error during installation of my Windows on VM. Later on, my friend tried to convert .vhdx to .iso on his PC, and he had sent DL link. This time during installation, it was working at first - no "media driver is missing" error. It asked me to put key, but i've chosen option "i dont have product key". At the next step, where i had to choose "advanced install" option, once where you can see system partition blabla, i click next and then BSOD restart loop occurs. I really hope that there will be some way to run Windows 10 ARM x64 without issues, even if it's not "official" supported. Just a simple "how to" guide and note that it can't be used commercialy, only for test purposes. Seriously, Pararells have done it, so i am pretty sure it can be done in VMware Fusion as well. UTM works for me, but it sucks for several reasons i don't want talk about now. I need Windows VM on Mac for performing cybersecurity related research [i treat my Mac as "job" related tool, so i program and do research mainly on Mac, don't want to jump from one device to another], however M1 was big mistake for such purpose. Let me know if you guys will somehow manage to run Windows 10 ARM x64 on VMware Fusion, please. Cheers!

Reply
0 Kudos
stephenyu05
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

but Parallel Desktop support win 11 ARM in Macbook

Reply
0 Kudos
zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I talk about Windows 10 not 11, but yeah, I do not deny this - Parallels handle Windows pretty well. However, it's not only about running Windows (I would like to run for ex. Linux based **bleep** too), and then you can feel that Parallels have different goals than VMware or VBox in such matter. Parallels is focusing on providing "Windows from Mac" experience, not virtual machine experience, not sure if you understand what I mean. Futhermore, Parallels is paid and I am not sure if spending 100 euro on something which (i think) can (or will soon) be achieved in VMware Fusion / VBox is great deal. Obviously, my post is big tl;dr, so there are more reasons for "Why not Parallels", but in the end, we talk on VMware forum, so let's stick to Fusion product 😛

Reply
0 Kudos
viking1304
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Windows 11 ARM guest works fairly good even it's not officially supported. With guestOS = "arm-other-64", sound not working, but with  guestOS = "arm-windows11-64" or guestOS = "arm-windows10-64" sound will start to work immediately.

Unfortunately I didn't managed to solve networking issue. I have tried with both virtio-win-0.1.190 and virtio-win-0.1.208. I even tried with Microsoft Kernel Network Adapter as someone suggested but without any luck.

zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Well, i did not even manage to get Windows running yet, so I can't really help (yet) with networking issues. Can you send me on PM source for your Windows 11 ARM? I assume you have downloaded it from different source than official Microsoft website, because the extension .vhdx is not detected by VMware Fusion, so it must be an .iso. Once i was close to get my Windows 10 ARM working (from some shady source), but after "advanced install" phase, it ended up with BSOD loop. Greetings!

Reply
0 Kudos
viking1304
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am using the official vhdx image (Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us__22454.vhdx), but converted to vmdk with qemu-img (as suggested in testing guide).

When you get windows 11 vmdk, create new VM as "Other 64-bit ARM". Then select "Use an existing virtual disk" and then "Make a separate copy of the virtual disk" and select vmdk that you created with qemu-img.

Do not boot newly created VM yet!

Give it more CPUs and more RAM. I am using 4 cores and 4GB. Finally edit vmx and set guestOS = "arm-windows11-64".

That's it. Windows will work perfectly fine (except network).

I hope this is not against the rules. If I am wrong, please delete this message and let me know that I did something I shouldn't do.

 

zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you! I will check this out later on. About rules - no idea why would it break any "ToS"? You can use Windows as far as it's for personal usage (so not in org). Cheers!

Reply
0 Kudos
DrBill269
Contributor
Contributor

I have managed to get Windows 10 Insider Preview Arm 64 20231 running in Tech Preview on my M1 MacBook Pro. But it was quite a convoluted procedure.

I had been running Windows 10 ARM on my M1 MacBookPro using Parallels 16.5.1. I had installed several programs that I need for my work from time to time and they all ran fine.

I imported the Parallels VM to VMware Fusion 12.1.2 and then created an "Other 64-bit Arm" custom VM with the Tech Preview using the virtual disk from 12.1.2. It doesn't work going straight from Parallels to Tech Preview.

The programs I need run fine. But, no network, no sharing, can't configure an optical drive. 

Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

I'm exploring how much we want to advise in how to get this working, because it _is_ unsupported and we don't want users getting into trouble doing "production" things on a system that isn't guaranteed to be stable.

At a high level, the path to get Windows 11 working is this:

- Get legit ISO (uupdump.net is nice, downloads come from MS's servers)
- Begin installation, it will complain that this computer isn't supported
- Shift-F10 to get the command prompt up
- regedit
- create new Key in HKLM / SYSTEM / Setup / "LabConfig"
- In the LabConfig key, new DWORD 32bit: "BypassTPMCheck" -> Value = 1
- close regedit, exit the cmd prompt
- Go back one step in the installer, continue the check... should pass now.

We're exploring the TPM situation. Our current implementation on x86 is that the entire VM needs to be encrypted, but that is a bit overkill and has a performance hit. (remember that the TPM was originally an optional security device, not a "base system requirement")

The above effectively bypasses the TPM key check. 

No real idea how long that will work for, MS could release an update that has a more enforcing check for the device (they also could _not_ do that, so who knows! What a time to be alive!)

 

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Not against the forum rules, but just understand that it's all "UNSUPPORTED".

When I say "support", it's about our ability to stand behind it and make sure it works, not the ability for it to work at all.

It might work, it might break for some reason in the future, YMMV.

 

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
Reply
0 Kudos
viking1304
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@Mikero I am little confused now. I just downloaded official Windows 11 vhdx image directly from Microsoft and converted it to vmdk with qemu-img. Only things that I had to change were number of CPUs and amount of RAM (through GUI) and guestOS (in vmx file), and everything (except network) just worked. I didn't had to change anything in registry, because I didn't get any complains about TPM.

The only real issue I have is network that doesn't work, even drivers exists and works on some other VM products that emulates same network hardware. Since Windows is not supported as it is clearly stated, whatever already work is great, but I wish I could use network too. 🙂

Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Converting the vhdx to vmdk (autocorrect keeps changing that to vodka...) with qemu-img is a perfectly good way to get going.

 I prefer to install from ISO myself, but it probably doesn't matter in the end.

For networking, I've heard folks having success with this:

In Windows, open a command prompt (cmd) as administrator, enter the following two commands:

bcdedit /debug on
bcdedit /dbgsettings net hostip:10.0.0.1 port:55555

Then reboot.

That _should_ enable a built-in Intel e1000e driver.

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
sulliops
Contributor
Contributor

This works like a charm for networking.

Reply
0 Kudos
zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I converted newset Win 11 ARM from MS website to vmdk with qemu-img and it works like a charm. Main issue was lack of network connection, but tips from Mikero with bcdedit did the trick. Everything is possible if you are determinated enough. Thank you Viking and Mikero!

Reply
0 Kudos
sxhxncz
Contributor
Contributor

Can the resolution be fixed, or at least be stretched to fill the display? 😄

Reply
0 Kudos
zrupmilouda
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I think so, screenshot was just proof that it works.

Reply
0 Kudos