Change display resolution, Big Sur host and guest

[kboortz]

I upgraded my macOS guest from Catalina to Big Sur. I could change resolutions in Catalina but now I'm locked to 1024x768.

This is on MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) with 16-inch (3072 × 1920), with the host resolution scaled to be one step bigger above the default.

I get black borders to the left and right, and I can't change the resolution.

I tried both "Use Fusion Display Preferences" and stretching

I also tried running this and reboot, no change

  $ sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

I also tried this that just says "Unable to set resolution"

  $ sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Tools/vmware-resolutionSet 3072 1920
  Requested resolution: 3072x1920
  Effective resolution: 3072x1920
  Unable to set resolution

Please help.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Change the OS version in the VM settings and reinstall VMWare tools in the guest (manually from the menu).  That should solve it.

[kboortz]

I'm pretty sure you are on to something, but there is something weird going on.

When I suspend the VM, it already says "macOS 11" in the General tab (I did change it earlier).

After reboot when I get to the login prompt I checked again, still "macOS 11".

When logged in I checked again, still "macOS 11".

I then open the Display preferences, still missing the different resolutions.

Then checking the General tab again, it is back to "Mac OS X 10.16". I tried reboot again and go into the sound preferences instead of display, same thing, switches to "Mac OS X 10.16".

In the .vmx file I find these two lines

guestOS.detailed.data = "bitness='64' buildNumber='19H1519' distroName='Mac OS X' distroVersion='10.15.7' familyName='Darwin' kernelVersion='19.6.0'"
.
.
guestInfo.detailed.data = "architecture='X86' bitness='64' buildNumber='20G730' distroName='Mac OS X' distroVersion='10.16' familyName='Darwin' kernelVersion='20.6.0'"

But nothing about "macOS 11".

[kboortz]

I found out I don't even need to go to settings. When I have rebooted and go to the the VM General settings, it says "macOS 11". If I close the dialog and open it again, it is back to "Mac OS X 10.16".....

[palter]

To allow older software to not freak out, Apple identifies macOS 11 as both macOS 11 and macOS 10.16 depending on which API you invoke to get the information.