How to install Windows 11 on a 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro with Fusion 13?

[jtimmons]

How to install Windows 11 on a 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro (2.3GHz, 8 core i9, 32 GB DDR4, Ventura 13.3.1) with Fusion 13? The KB is pretty useless and I've tried several different ways including changing to secure boot, to downloading into a clone of a Windows 10, and making textedit entries. This is the most convoluted nonsense.

There must be a normal person somewhere that can write clearly and step by step to make a Windows 11 installation possible given the above parameters of my laptop.

Thank you!

[ColoradoMarmot]

You should just be able to drag/drop the installation iso you got from Microsoft into the new VM wizard and it'll configure everything for you.  Not sure where you're seeing anything more complicated than that (at least that's current).  Ignore anything related to ARM based systems - it is convoluted there, but not on intel.

[Technogeezer]

Adding to what @ColoradoMarmot says

See the section in the Fusion 13 manual:  Install Windows 11 as the Guest Operating System .

Fusion 13 automatically adds a TPM device when you configure the VM to encrypt, and it provides an encryption option to only encrypt the files needed to support a TPM (recommended - It does not encrypt the virtual disk files, so there’s a minimal performance hit with this option, and it is heads and shoulders better than the flawed “experimental” TPM of Fusion 12). Once the VM starts, the installation procedure is exactly the same as installing to a physical machine. Make sure to install VMware Tools after setup completes and before activating Windows.

Any KB article or Internet video about installing Windows 11 is out of date if it’s referring to Workstation 16 or Fusion 12.  

There is one confusing part of the procedure. It says to “Choose Firmware Type”. What it should say is that you must choose UEFI firmware for Windows 11 and you really should choose “UEFI Secure Boot” - there are few reasons not to enable Secure Boot.