2010 MacBook Pro + Fusion Pro 10 + High Sierra. Worked for me.

[OldSchoolAdmin]

I downloaded the Fusion Pro 10 Trial and installed it on my 2010 MacBook Pro on a whim just to see what would happen, since it wasn't suppose to work on this year model.

Needless to say, I was both shocked and pleasantly surprised when it booted one of my Windows 7 Pro VMs.  I was able to use it, reboot it a few times, and run Windows Update.  Windows Update downloaded and installed the December rollup and their malware updates, totaling about 300 MB.  It went through the normal install/reboot cycle and booted back up as expected.

Specs on the machine:  17" Mid 2010 Macbook Pro 6,1 CPU 2.8 Ghz I7  4GB Ram  Original 500GB Seagate HD 5000 rpm  macOS High Sierra 10.13.2

So here is my question:  Why did it work if it isn't suppose to???

My end goal is to upgrade my 27" 2010 iMac to High Sierra, but I have to have Fusion on it.  It currently has Mavericks with Fusion 7.

Fusion 10 is not suppose to work on it either, but I can not play around with that one like I can this MacBook Pro.

So apparently Fusion 10 can run on a 2010 Mac, but which ones?

I would appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts on this.  Thanks.

[bluefirestorm]

2010 17" MacBook Pro 2.8GHz works with Fusion 10 because its CPU is i7-640M which belongs to the Westmere Arrandale family.

EDIT:

Some 2010 27" iMac model won't work with Fusion 10 because its CPU belongs to the Nehalem Lynnfield family.

Some 2010 27" iMac models might work with Fusion 10 provided its CPU belongs to the Westmere Clarkdale family.

It looks like the 2010 Apple iMac is really a mix of old and new when they were launched. So you might have to get specific on the CPU and model of your 27" iMac to know.

But however, I don't think Fusion 10 will work with Mavericks and moving to High Sierra has its own set of teething problems.

Intel® Core™ i7-640M Processor (4M Cache, 2.80 GHz) Product Specifications

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/29896/Lynnfield

[OldSchoolAdmin]

So it looks like the real issue here is more specific than "All Macs launched in 2011 or later are supported".

I pulled the following info out of my vmware.logs on both machines.  Aside from the marketing hype, this looks like what the real pass/fail is:

2010 MacBook Pro 17" 6,1

2017-12-16T16:39:01.726-06:00| vmx| I125: hostCPUID vendor: GenuineIntel

2017-12-16T16:39:01.726-06:00| vmx| I125: hostCPUID family: 0x6 model: 0x25 stepping: 0x5

2017-12-16T16:39:01.726-06:00| vmx| I125: hostCPUID codename: Westmere/Clarkdale (Core i7)

2017-12-16T16:39:01.726-06:00| vmx| I125: hostCPUID name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       M 640  @ 2.80GHz

2017-12-16T16:39:01.838-06:00| vmx| I125:   Enable EPT                      {0,1}

2017-12-16T16:39:01.838-06:00| vmx| I125:   Unrestricted guest           {0,1}     <<<<<-----MacBook Pro works.

2010 iMac 27” 11,3

2017-08-22T17:58:11.907-06:00| vmx| I120: hostCPUID vendor: GenuineIntel

2017-08-22T17:58:11.907-06:00| vmx| I120: hostCPUID family: 0x6 model: 0x1e stepping: 0x5

2017-08-22T17:58:11.907-06:00| vmx| I120: hostCPUID codename: Clarksfield/Lynnfield (Core i5)

2017-08-22T17:58:11.907-06:00| vmx| I120: hostCPUID name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         760  @ 2.80GHz

2017-08-22T17:58:11.975-06:00| vmx| I120:   Enable EPT                      {0,1}

2017-08-22T17:58:11.975-06:00| vmx| I120:   Unrestricted guest           { 0 }      <<<<<-----iMac, probably not gonna happen  😞

So are "Unrestricted Mode" and "Unrestricted Guest" two different features?  I guess that is where I thought it might have a chance.

[bluefirestorm]

There is few mix of Nehalem Lynnfield and Westmere Clarkdale for 2010 iMac models. But the i5-760 is definitely Nehalem Lynnfield so it won't work with Fusion 10.

Intel® Core™ i5-760 Processor (8M Cache, 2.80 GHz) Product Specifications

https://everymac.com/systems/by_year/macs-released-in-2010.html

Unrestricted guest mode, VMX Unrestricted Guest in real mode (in the VMware message), IA-32e mode, are all the same. Unrestricted guest mode was introduced in the Westmere architecture. Westmere is the successor to Nehalem.

A definitive check would be on MSR 0x485. You should be able to see it in the vmware.log as well. If bit 5 value is 1 then the VMX Unrestricted Guest feature is present in the Intel CPU.

Example below: bit 5 is 1 (0xe5 = 1110-0101)

vmx| I125: Common: MSR      0x485 =         0x300481e5

A CPU without Unrestricted Guest likely have 0xc5 (1100-0101) instead of 0xe5 for the least significant byte in MSR 0x485.

[OldSchoolAdmin]

Somewhere in all of the spec sheets I've read the last couple of days, I saw "Unrestricted Mode" listed for the i5-760.  Not "Unrestricted Guest", but "Unrestricted Mode".

Of course, I can't find that reference again, but I think it is a moot point now.  I'm reasonably certain that Fusion 10 is not going to run on my iMac.  Regardless of what they meant by "Unrestricted Mode", this CPU doesn't meet the minimum VMX requirements for 10.

Maybe this will help someone else that is in the 2010 grey area figure out their situation.  Thanks for the replies.

[OldSchoolAdmin]

This is what was in the iMac log:

2017-08-22T17:58:11.907-06:00| vmx| I120: Common: MSR

0x485 =

0x401c5

This is what was in the MacBook Pro log:

2017-12-16T16:39:01.726-06:00| vmx| I125: Common: MSR

0x485 =

0x401e7

These were the only MSR 0x485 references in both.

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

bit 7 --> bit 4 : bit 3 --> bit 0

0x401c5 - no unrestricted guest feature

0xc5 = 1100:0101

0x401e7 - unrestricted guest feature present

0xe7 = 1110:0111

So far what I've seen the i5 and i7 CPUs that are Sandy Bridge and later seem to have the Unrestricted Guest feature. These are four digit numbers instead of the confusing 3 digit mix of Westmere and Nehalem CPUs.