Running VM Fusionware and Windows 10 from an external drive

[gary6]

Good evening. I am having an issue running VM Fusion 11.5 with Windows 10. I am currently getting a message 
(photo attached) that states I do not have enough physical memory to power on the virtual machine with its configured setting. The programs are being run on a MacBook Pro (13 inch, 2016, 4 Thunderbolt ports). Current OS system is macOS Big Sur 11.4. It is a MacBook Pro 13.2. It has a 3.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 with 16GB of memory. It has a 500 GB SSD internal drive.

This is the first time I have tried to open the virtual machine since installing Big Sur. It will not run due to the aforementioned message about not enough physical memory.

Could I install VM Fusion and Windows on an external hard drive and run the programs from there? Or does anyone have other suggestions.

I appreciate any input.

[scott28tt]

You must run Fusion 12 on Big Sur, due to changes Apple made in their OS, no earlier version of Fusion allows you to power on any VM.

[gary6]

So if I update to Fusion 12, that will solve the problem?

[scott28tt]

If the only thing stopping your VM running is because you're trying to run Fusion 11 on Big Sur, yes.