I wasted a lot of time today on something that VMWare could have made very simple.
We have VMWare 10.1.6. Everything worked fine in Mojave and then I upgraded my machine to Catalina. It no longer renders in the single window but only shows a black screen. If I switch to Unity mode, I get a bunch of white, empty windows without even the standard controls (close, minimize, etc.).
I think this is another big letdown in my experience with VMWare. It seems that this version is out-of-date and wasn't even tested on Mojave (let alone Catalina). I understand that you can't provide support forever but VMWare could at least build in a warning or notification. I don't purchase or manage these licenses and it's not obvious to me what's supported and what's not. If I had known this version was already unsupported in the previous OS edition, I wouldn't have wasted my time.
I looked it up and Fusion 10.1.6 was released 28 Mar 2019. I'm not asking about a product that they stopped updating 5-10 years ago. 10.0 itself was released just under two years ago.
After upgrading to Catalina, users are presented with:
- A black screen with no errors and no warnings
- No security/compatibility problems reported from the OS or VMWare
- No error/warning that it can't render or is denied access to "Screen Recording"
- No ability to add/remove the app from "Screen Recording"
Since permissions seems to be at the heart of this, I don't see why I get no information or warnings. The "Screen Recording" window has no add/remove buttons. There is nothing to help me understand what the issue is or why I can't add/remove things.
I've read the posts about a script that will inject something into a database, so that VMWare will appear in "Screen Recording" and allow me to give it access. So, it seems like a relatively simple issue to fix.
I think VMWare could do a better job alerting customers and helping them understand when their version will be obsolete. This is particularly important, since there is no support and no testing for outdated versions. If it were me, I would spend the relatively small amount of time to test the previous, major Fusion version on the next OS major version. As a customer, I would appreciate being told that it won't work, even if the only answer is to purchase an upgrade. That would make me more likely to upgrade. I don't mind purchasing an upgrade but I think it's pretty poor of VMWare to ignore customers like this.
As it stands, it feels like VMWare doesn't care about customers using a product that was still being updated this year.
