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jobewancanoli
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How Close is Fusion 12 Being to Being Compatible with Apple M1 Silicon and Is There a Beta Program?

How Close is Fusion 12 Being to Being Compatible with Apple M1 Silicon and Is There a Beta Program and if there is can I join?

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jobewancanoli
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What I've found out since the seminal post to this thread:

– An apologetic (in the religious sense) was released by a VMWare rep regarding among other things, no X86 support and waiting on Microsoft for an answer re: ARM Win10 if I'm not mistaken (I'm not.)

– I found out from various posts in this forum that Parallels has 'jumped the shark' and produced a version that works with Apple M1 Silicon.

– I went and got a trial version of Parallels; although I have a soft spot in my digital heart for Fusion as a long-time user, but if'n it don't work, what's a body to do?

– The trial version of Parallels installed on my M1 box without incident.

– When it came time to install Win10, I was referred to an "Insider" program Microsoft is running in order to get a current release of their ARM Win10 image; the obvious question being, WHAT UP WIT DAT, VWware?

– ARM Win10 installed without APPARENT incident; but Internet access on my installation doesn't want to work; it works fine for the M1 box outside of the Parallels VM. Got it to work briefly with the help of Support remoted into it but cannot duplicate the functionality. It has been escalated to Tier 2 Support. They were clearly surprised there were ANY problems and as a result not initially prepared to deal with my issue; they collected session data and went on their way.

SO . . there's something a bit odd about the broadcasted stance from the VMware rep's online memo regarding the availability of ARM Win10. Perhaps some explanation will push aside any cobwebs, but to me at least, it smells a little like something's burning in the oven.

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scott28tt
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https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2021/04/fusion-on-apple-silicon-progress-update.html


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ColoradoMarmot
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Keep in mind that it won't support intel guests.

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DrBigJim
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Probably not this year, maybe by WWDC next year.

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wila
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Hi,


@DrBigJim wrote:

Probably not this year, maybe by WWDC next year.


You've made it clear in other posts that you're unhappy with the VMware Fusion M1 progress, that's fine, but don't start spreading FUD.


Before we get right into it, I just want to summarize our position way up front with a quick tl;dr:

  • We will be delivering a Tech Preview of VMware Fusion for macOS on Apple silicon this year.

Right from the article, written by the product manager, who has a better idea about the time line than anyone else.

--
Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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DrBigJim
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I am not spreading FUD, I am just speculating that it will take a while for the team to get the product ready for delivery to customers. As they have mentioned, they are taking the time to get it right and working with ESXi as well. Apparently you did not catch the sarcasm in the post.

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jobewancanoli
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What I've found out since the seminal post to this thread:

– An apologetic (in the religious sense) was released by a VMWare rep regarding among other things, no X86 support and waiting on Microsoft for an answer re: ARM Win10 if I'm not mistaken (I'm not.)

– I found out from various posts in this forum that Parallels has 'jumped the shark' and produced a version that works with Apple M1 Silicon.

– I went and got a trial version of Parallels; although I have a soft spot in my digital heart for Fusion as a long-time user, but if'n it don't work, what's a body to do?

– The trial version of Parallels installed on my M1 box without incident.

– When it came time to install Win10, I was referred to an "Insider" program Microsoft is running in order to get a current release of their ARM Win10 image; the obvious question being, WHAT UP WIT DAT, VWware?

– ARM Win10 installed without APPARENT incident; but Internet access on my installation doesn't want to work; it works fine for the M1 box outside of the Parallels VM. Got it to work briefly with the help of Support remoted into it but cannot duplicate the functionality. It has been escalated to Tier 2 Support. They were clearly surprised there were ANY problems and as a result not initially prepared to deal with my issue; they collected session data and went on their way.

SO . . there's something a bit odd about the broadcasted stance from the VMware rep's online memo regarding the availability of ARM Win10. Perhaps some explanation will push aside any cobwebs, but to me at least, it smells a little like something's burning in the oven.

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Technogeezer
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Personal opinion.

There is nothing “odd” about @Mikero (VMware product manager) response about Windows 10 on ARM. He’s being honest with you.

  • Microsoft is not licensing that product to anyone but OEMs at this time. As an end user, you can’t buy it. 
  • (Parallels is conveniently omitting the discussion about that).
  • The Insider build of Windows 10 for ARM they point you to is designed for developers and business to get early access to product and to provide feedback to Microsoft. In my mind it is BETA CODE. User beware, as you have found. 
  • Microsoft has not said if they will license it to end users, so VMware is not prioritizing efforts on a product that may never see the light of day for end users. That may change if Microsoft changes their mind. This is in line with VMware’s consistent stance of not violating vendor EULAs.

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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gringley
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I wondered how that was working?  So you have to join the Windows Insider program...and then you download and run an ARM image that is not licensed to use on Apple hardware.  Parallels is relying on Microsoft not enforcing the license, and then you are on a beta build of Windows that may never be updatable to a proper licensed version of Windows 10 on ARM.  I agree I would do it too for play time if I had an M1 Mac, but I notice a lot of people here do their critical business on Fusion VMs and thus don't need the risks that Parallels is asking us to take.

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Technogeezer
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@gringley I’m kind of on the same page as your comment. I’m not saying people shouldn’t run the Insider preview on Parallels. But people have to understand what they are getting into and have the right expectations. Thar be dragons there, matey. 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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DrBigJim
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Parallels outlines that Windows 10 is not currently licensed to run on Apple M1 processor. I have tested it myself and activated the installation with a license key. Currently anyone can run Windows 10 without activating Windows 10 and the only ramification is that you cannot personalize the desktop. Yes, currently you would be running the build from the Dev branch of Windows 10, and it will run both x86 and x86-64 Windows programs. I tested this to know that it was done. I would have hoped that VMware would have been quicker with updating VMware Fusion for the Apple M1, but apparently they are taking longer to get the software out. I know that it is frustrating to wait on a vendor to deliver an update to software that has long been used to provide alternative environments for testing and other purposes. What this has shown me is that I no longer have a need for virtualization. Raspberry Pis are good enough to provide a Linux environment and I no longer have a need for Windows, in any flavor or architecture. This means that I can easily wait for VMware to eventually release Fusion for the M1 Macintosh computers, ever how long that is. When they eventually release the update, I might install it to look at various things.

There are those among us that really want x86-64 emulation in the product, and that will take a much longer development cycle. Eventually it will happen as people move away from x86-64 architecture. I have thought long and hard about it myself and I have realized that it is the work that I do that is more important. I like VMware Fusion better than Parallels because I do not like and avoid software subscriptions. QEMU has shown some progress in running Windows 10 for ARM, but currently it still has issues. It does not appear that the VirtualBox developers even care about updating their software to work on the M1. I never cared for the lack of performance in using VirtualBox in the past.

I do hope that the VMware Fusion product team are very close to getting something out, hopefully before WWDC on June 7th. They would have had a year to update VMware Fusion to work on the M1 version of Fusion. I know that software development on products such as Fusion takes time, after all it is not a simple webpage. I had entertained developing something like Fusion myself.

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ColoradoMarmot
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Well put @Technogeezer VMWare would be legally liable for suggesting and facilitating EULA violations.  As a publicly traded US company they aren't going to do that, and I can't blame them.  The problem with wink-wink nudge nudge acceptance by MSFT of EULA violations, is that when they do try to sue, the courts will use it against them.  While not exactly the same, the legal doctrine is why Kleenex and Xerox are so active against people genericizing their names (google almost lost a case along these lines).  It only takes one hammer by MSFT and Parallels is done.

IMHO, no one should wait for x86 OS emulation on M1 hardware.  If that's a critical use case, stick with Intel.  I do have hope that MSFT will lift the ARM license restrictions, but until it's legal...as you say...thar be dragons.

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DrBigJim
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Apparently x86 or x64 emulation is not worth pursuing (https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/30/intel-windows-not-coming-to-m1-vmware-fusion-arm-windows-...) Microsoft has been working on Windows for ARM devices for a long time and still have not figured out how to make it work well. I used VMware Fusion to migrate from Windows 7 to macOS and lately I have only applied updates to my Windows virtual machines. There are no applications that I use today that require Windows. As a computer security expert, I mainly used virtualization as a personal lab platform. This use case still makes sense as it makes absolutely no sense to have multiple computers that barely get used. This is what makes virtualization beneficial. In less than a month, it has been a year since the announcement of the move to Apple Silicon along with the availability of transition kits. It does seem like VMware waited until the first M1 based Macintoshes could be acquired before they started porting Fusion to M1.

Thinking about it, it is ironic that Windows (NT based) originally worked on multiple architectures, but with the demise of the other supported platforms, it seems like Microsoft designed to eliminate hardware abstraction and fully moved the code to intel only. Microsoft is in a downward spiral and becoming irrelevant to modern computing. Subscription software is not the path forward as Microsoft is pushing it's base toward.

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