Install VM Fusion 12 but retain virtual machine from version 8.5 - How to?

[Riley_KC]

I had thought a search would find a previous question on the subject but my search term skills are lacking. I've just installed Mac OS Monterey only to find that despite my install of VM Ware 8.5 being a 64 bit app it won't run under Monterey. I need to install VM ware 12 but I want to keep the Windows 10 virtual machine I already have on the Mac. How would I go about this?

Thanks for any suggestions

Riley

[Technogeezer]

Fusion virtual machines are like Microsoft Word documents. Deleting or upgrading Fusion does not touch your virtual machines, same as deleting or upgrading of Word does not touch any Word documents you create. 

Also like Word, existing virtual machines can be opened and run on newer Fusion versions.

Please make sure you  manually uninstall that old VMware Fusion version using the instructions in KB article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1017838 before installing Fusion 12. Simply dragging the old Fusion application to the trash is not sufficient  

[Riley_KC]

Thanks for your model comprehensive reply. Worked like a champ and substantially solidified my understanding of virtual machines in this context.