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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Newbie setting up VM ware on a Mac

What version or product of VMware do I need to run Windows 10 on my Mac with Monterey?

What version or product of VMware do I need to run Mac on OS 10 or 11 on my Mac with Monterey?

There are so many VMware products I need a bit of help knowing what to buy.

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

VMware Fusion is the product for running VMs on a Mac: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion.html

You will need version 12.2.x to run on Monterey: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2088571

I’ve reported your thread so a moderator should move it to the area for Fusion.

 


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anchinnk
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Jim

As scott28tt pointed out, you'll need VMWare Fusion 12.2. 

I've recently started using Fusion seriously with a Windows 11 VM hosted on an iMac Pro running Monterey. Since my VM is about 300 GB big, I upgraded the RAM on the iMac to 128 GB. That may be overdoing it a bit, but it does make the VM run beautifully!

I would recommend not making drive C: in the Windows VM too small - expanding it later is a pain in the proverbial. I have drive C: at 200 GB and a second "hard disk" as drive D with another 100 GB.

I have a number of applications that only exist as Windows software, otherwise I'd run them natively in Monterey.

The Fusion environment is easy to use, I find, but the "Single Window" or "Full Screen" options run better in my opinion than "Unity". The idea of Unity is to provide a seamless cohabitation of Windows and Mac programs, but I did get the impression that it's not 100% per cent reliable. Praps that's just me, though. I'm still learning the ropes with Fusion. Certainly the mapping of the anticipated Windows shortcuts was almost perfect without any intervention from me. The num keys on the extended Mac keyboard are still not quite the way I want them, but I'll get that sorted, I'm sure.

Hope it all goes well for you. 

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

One other note - if you're on an M1 mac, you'll need to use the tech preview - and there isn't currently support for running windows.

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks so much for your timely info.

 

Jim

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Sorry, I was not clearer earlier. I have several Intel macs in my business. My laptop has Monterey and a couple of iMacs have Catalina. I want to use Fusion to run Sierra on all machines, What version of Fusion do I need?

Down the road, I want to put Windows 10 on the laptop too. Will that impact what version of Fusion I need?

Thanks,

Jim

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dempson
Hot Shot
Hot Shot


@cfpguy wrote:

Sorry, I was not clearer earlier. I have several Intel macs in my business. My laptop has Monterey and a couple of iMacs have Catalina. I want to use Fusion to run Sierra on all machines, What version of Fusion do I need?

Down the road, I want to put Windows 10 on the laptop too. Will that impact what version of Fusion I need?

Fusion 12 Player or Pro (specifically version 12.2 or later) will run on macOS Monterey on your Intel Mac laptop, and will let you run both macOS Sierra and Windows 10 guests.

The same major version Fusion 12 also runs on macOS Catalina, but you will need to download and install Fusion 12.1.2 rather than the latest minor version (12.2 and later requires macOS Big Sur or later, 12.0.x and 12.1.x run on Catalina.) 12.1.2 will also support macOS Sierra and Windows 10 guests.

Therefore three licences for Fusion 12 Player 12 or Pro should cover your current and near future requirements.

Some technical issues might be a stumbling block:

1. Fusion on macOS Catalina or earlier uses VMware's own hypervisor. On macOS Big Sur or later, Apple's hypervisor is used. This affects some areas like advanced networking features (generally better on VMware's hypervisor).

2. Nested Virtualisation on Apple's hypervisor has major performance problems unless you happen to have one a limited set of Macs that have just the right CPU (we need to know exactly which Mac model you have, including its CPU configuration, to be able to identify this detail). Nested virtualisation may be an issue for Windows 10 depending on whether the software you want to run in Windows requires creating virtual machines, or you are using features like the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

3. For running macOS Sierra as a guest, there is one problem you need to know about (which apply to all hypervisors and all competing virtualisation products): no 3D graphics support. If you want to run applications on macOS Sierra which require 3D graphics, they will not work properly in a macOS VM. Some of these are not obvious ahead of time, e.g. Apple's iWork '09 suite (Pages 4.x, Numbers 2.x, Keynote 5.x) and earlier use QuickDraw 3D to render documents, which doesn't work unless you have a 3D graphics controller. This means you see blank documents if you try to run those applications in a macOS VM. (I've kept a 2012 Mac Mini running macOS Sierra partly so I can run those applications on rare occasions.)

For planning ahead, if your laptop is new enough to run macOS Ventura:

We don't know yet whether Fusion 12 will get a free update to officially support macOS Ventura or whether that will be a paid upgrade, but it is likely that it will be paid as we've had almost two years since version 12 was released. In the past, I've managed this by timing a licence purchase for Fusion after the point the new major version is announced, so I get the current version and a free upgrade to the next version due to recent purchase. VMware is having their conference in August and then or slightly later is probably when they will announce the next version of Fusion.

We don't yet know if perpetual licences will continue to be an option, or whether they will switch to a subscription model (Broadcom is buying VMware and they have stated they prefer subscriptions).

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

And one other note, if your laptop is a M1 machine, it will never be able to share VMs with intel machines, or run Sierra or any other Intel OS.

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Good to know.

Still digesting your previous communication. There are a number of words I do not understand. I will put them in a separate communication.

Thanks,

Jim

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Words I am unfamiliar with:

  1. Hypervisor
  2. Nested virtualization

I am aware that Broadcom was buying VMware. Too bad. Almost always results in greater costs and reduced value.

Thanks for your help. I'm sure I will have more questions.

BTW, I tried to use Parallels and could not get installed Sierra installed on my machines with their phone support. I finally got a refund and that is why I am here. I used VM ware years ago on a Mac to run Windows 95 and was pretty happy with it. Should have stuck with VMW. Hopefully, I can get Sierra to work. 

II do not need advanced networking on Sierra. I have a couple of 32-bit apps I want to continue to use.

I have attached a screenshot of the system on this iMac. What more do you need to see?

 

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

I think I can help with some understandable interpretations of the terms you are unfamiliar with:

Hypervisor - a program that allows the configuration and running of a virtual machine. Hypervisors run virtual machines of the same CPU architecture that the hypervisor is running on (e.g. if the hypervisor is running on an Intel chip, the virtual machines must also run on Intel chips).

This is different than emulators, which emulate a different processor chip than the one that the emulator is running on (for example, running Intel "virtual machines" on M1 Macs requires an emulator for the Intel chip set).

There are two types of hypervisors. One is essentially its own operating system and boots directly onto bare metal. The best example of this is VMware's vSphere/ESX hypervisor.

The other type is a hypervisor that runs as a program under another operating system and allows you to run virtual machines. VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, Parallels Desktop, and Oracle VirtualBox are examples of these types of hypervisors.

Nested virtualization - where you wish to run either of these two types of hypervisors as a virtual machine. Why would anyone want to do this? One reason is for product training. For example, someone wanting to familiarize themselves with VMware's enterprise virtualization products (ESXi/vSphere) don't necessarily want to dedicate hardware to it. By running the hypervisor in a virtual machine on their existing Mac/PC (nested), they're able to create a playground to create, configure, and run virtual machines in that environment without the expense of an additional PC/Mac.

My son would tell me to think of the movie "Inception"... Or movies where's there a movie within a movie - Home Alone with its gangster movies come to mind.

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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dempson
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

@cfpguyThe CPU and other specs of your iMac are fine for running VMware Fusion 12 and macOS Sierra as a guest. Disk space might be an issue: the VM will occupy at least 40 GB of disk space (more if you need a fair amount of disk space inside the VM).

I normally run a macOS Sierra VM in VMware Fusion 11 on an older MacBook Pro but I also have a copy of that VM in VMware Fusion 12 on my Late 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro running macOS Catalina, which is a similar setup to what you want (details of the host Mac model are not important in this case.)

The main issue I previously mentioned which is a potential problem for your use of macOS Sierra in a VM on the iMacs (under macOS Catalina) is the lack of 3D graphics support for macOS VMs. Which 32-bit applications do you want to run in macOS Sierra?

Another complication I hadn't mentioned yet is the process to set up a macOS Sierra, which you might have run into when trying to set it up in Parallels.

A few years ago, Apple changed the distribution method for downloading older macOS installers, specifically for macOS Sierra and earlier. It used to be a link to a hidden page on App Store (the same method still used for macOS High Sierra and later) but is now a downloaded disk image. That disk image cannot be used to create a VM directly: you first need to use the disk image to create a copy of the installer application for macOS Sierra. This can be done easily if your Mac is old enough enough to boot macOS Sierra (Mid 2017 or older), but if your Mac is too new (Late 2017 or newer) then there is a more complex process involving temporary use of a newer macOS in a VM.

In your case, your Late 2014 iMac is old enough so the process is easily done on that computer, and you can do the preliminary steps before you have VMWare Fusion.

1. Download the disk image from Apple which contains the macOS Sierra installer. Apple has a page listing all the old versions:

https://support.apple.com/HT211683

Use the macOS Sierra link near the bottom of that page to download InstallOS.dmg for macOS Sierra.

2. Open the resulting InstallOS.dmg file. It opens a Finder window showing the contents of the disk image.

3. Open the "InstallOS.pkg" installer package inside the disk image. This runs Installer.

4. Follow through the usual prompts, agree to the licence etc. and proceed with installation.

The end result is that it creates a copy of "Install macOS Sierra.app" in your Applications folder. Keep that file and don't run it: you will need it to create a macOS Sierra virtual machine with VMware Fusion. You can copy the Install macOS Sierra application to your other Macs rather than having to go through the disk image method again.

(If you try to do the above on a Mac which is too new to boot macOS Sierra, then step 4 will fail because the installer package refuses to create the Install macOS Sierra application unless your Mac is a model able to boot that version of macOS.)

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dempson
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

@cfpguy It would also be helpful to see the specifications of your laptop, since you want to run VMware Fusion on that. (I suggest you erase the serial number from your screen shot of About This Mac - we don't need to know that.)

There are some technical details about the host Mac which are important to determine whether it is viable to run VMs at all. The main ones are CPU cores and memory: I'd recommend a minimum of four CPU cores and 16 GB memory, but you might need more of both depending on what specifications you need for the VM, and software you need to run on the host at the same time as the VM is running.

All 15-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros supported by macOS Monterey would qualify, but 2017 and earlier 13-inch MacBook Pros and almost all Intel MacBook Airs only have two CPU cores.

Knowing the specific CPU will also allow us to answer the question of whether your Windows 10 VM would perform badly if you happen to need nested virtualisation.

As with the iMac, you also need to allow at least 40 GB of disk space for each VM.

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

Hi there,

I believe I followed the instructions. BTW it was not easy to download a trial copy but I managed to do that. However, I came across some stumbling blocks. The screenshots are below.

I went thru the VMware setup but could not find settings that enabled me to overcome those notifications.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim

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cfpguy
Contributor
Contributor

This messsaging system takes some getting used to. My 6/18/22 @ 6:19 PM comment was referring to this iMac

Screen Shot 2022-06-18 at 6.22.21 PM.png

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

From what this last post is saying, you are running macOS Catalina, not Monterey. What version of Fusion are you attempting to run? Hopefully you're using Fusion 12.1.2, since 12.2.x does not support Catalina.

 

 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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