Problem Installing macOS 13 Ventura As Guest OS VM in VMware Fusion 13

[SnakeGirl]

Is it possible to create a stable working VM for guest OS macOS 13 Ventura using Fusion 13?  (i’m running Fusion 13.0.2 x86 under a Personal Use License for VMware Fusion Player, i don’t know if this has any bearing on anything.)  When i look at the VMware Compatibility Guide under Fusion 13.0, i only see under OS Family Name:  macOS 10.12 thru macOS 12 & do not see macOS 13 (Ventura) listed. 

If i attempt to create a macOS Ventura VM in Fusion 13.0.2 using the “Install macOS Ventura.app” installer downloaded from Apple, the .app installer file will not drop into the "Install from disc or image" space in the "Select the Installation Method" window/dialog so i wasn’t able to create a Ventura VM from scratch using this procedure.  (As an added note, the same thing happened when i tried to create a macOS Monterey VM in Fusion 13 using the “Install macOS Monterey.app” installer from Apple, i was also unable to create the Monterey VM from scratch using this procedure.)

Alternatively, i tried doing an upgrade of a macOS Big Sur VM created in Fusion 13 to Ventura by executing the “Install macOS Ventura.app” inside the Big Sur VM.  i was for the most part able to get thru the Ventura installation & appear to successfully create a Ventura VM (w/1 or 2 minor glitches in the installation process).

However, the resulting Ventura VM created by upgrading Big Sur turned out to be unstable & kept spontaneously crashing & restarting while giving the attached screens/error messages.  (Upgrading a Big Sur VM to Monterey using the same upgrade procedure appeared to complete successfully & the resulting Monterey VM created did not have the same instability issues as the Ventura VM created in this way.)

[Technogeezer]

There are known issues with trying to install Ventura under Fusion 13, revolving around the inability of Fusion to create the installation media from the Apple installer app. The workaround is to create an bootable installer disk image for Ventura manually from the "Install macOS xxxxx.app" file using instructions from Apple. 

Instructions for manually creating a macOS VM from an installer, without using scripts ( thanks to @msschmitt )

1. In Terminal create an empty disk image: 

   hdiutil create -o "Installer.dmg” -size 15g -layout SPUD -fs "HFS+J"

2. Open the .dmg to mount it. It probably will mount as "Untitled".
3. Follow the instructions at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 to create installer media. Instead of a physical disk volume that the tech note tells you, use  /Volumes/Untitiled as the destination for the disk image. Example:
   
   

   sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Ventura.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

4. Eject the Untitled volume from the Finder. Also use Disk Utility to eject the Shared Support image; there's a bug in macOS installers that leaves it mounted.
5. In Fusion, create a new VM.
6. At "Select the Installation Method", drag the .dmg file to "Install from disc or image".
7. Continue through the New VM dialogs as normal.

The VM will be set to boot from the installer disk image, attached to the virtual CD ROM drive. It doesn't matter where the installer is; there's no requirement that it be copied into the VM's folder.

This works for installer apps as far back as Catalina, I believe. 

[SnakeGirl]

Oh thank you!

i was mistaken/misspoke when posting my question & in the 2nd paragraph i said "If i attempt to create a macOS Ventura VM ... the .app installer file will not drop into the "Install from disc or image" space ...".  What i described was actually what happened when trying to drag & drop Monterey & Ventura installers in Fusion 10, not Fusion 13.  (Sorry for the mix-up!)

In Fusion 13, the correct description of what happened when i tried to install Monterey & Ventura were that the VM installation processes began normally but resulted in an error message consistent w/what you mentioned regarding the inability to create installation media (screenshots attached).

[Technogeezer]

I can't say for sure if those newer macOS versions will work on Fusion 10 or not. They might, but if I remember correctly those Monterey and Ventura were released long after Fusion 10. I would say that the best shot you have of getting them working is to create the bootable installation media yourself, and manually creating your virtual machine instead of drag/dropping the .dmg file. Choose the highest macOS version that you can, and then once the VM is created, manually configure the virtual CD/DVD drive to point to your installer image.

One other thing I can think of for Ventura specifically - you will need to manually edit the virtual machine configuration file in order to run Ventura on anything earlier than Fusion 13.0.1. The virtual network adapter type in that file needs to be changed from "e1000e" to "vmxnet3" because Apple dropped the e1000e network driver in Ventura.

[SnakeGirl]

Thank you so much for the additional information & suggestion!

[ColoradoMarmot]

Highly unlikely to work because of the changes Apple made to how the system partition is created.

[Technogeezer]

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@ColoradoMarmot wrote:

Highly unlikely to work because of the changes Apple made to how the system partition is created.

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That's always a possibility. I'm not sure how much Fusion had to be changed in order to support later macOS changes. 

Unfortunately I don't have that old of a macOS version to run Fusion 10 and then check out how it will behave with those newer macOS versions. 

[SnakeGirl]

i went & followed the steps outlined in your 09-21-2023 08:57 AM reply labeled "Instructions for manually creating a macOS VM from an installer, without using scripts (thanks to @msschmitt)" to create a bootable installer disk image for Big Sur & then create a Big Sur VM on Fusion 10.  The install ran successfully & i am very happy about that.

However, afterwards i got very confused about how to repeat this procedure again to do the same for Monterey.  i got stuck @ Step 1 - the hdiutil -create command.  How do i repeat this set of steps if i want to save the 1st installer i created for Big Sur & start over to create a brand new one for the next macOS version?  i had renamed the 1st Install.dmg file for Big Sur, but when i tried to repeat the hdiutil create command in Terminal, the system did not respond in the same way as the 1st time around.  The 2nd time instead of coming back w/the reply "created: /Users/princess/Installer.dmg", it came back w/a caret prompt ">" & i had no idea what to do w/this.  It didn't seem to make any difference where i moved that Install.dmg file even though it had been renamed.  i tried deleting the file & emptying the trash before i tried again the 3rd time but in this case the Terminal window never even came back w/a response or prompt of any kind & is still stuck in that mode.

What steps or procedures do i need to follow if i want to create more than 1 of these Installer.dmg files for different versions of macOS?  How badly did i mess up my system by trying that Terminal hdiutil command several times when there already had been an Installer.dmg file created, renamed, moved around, & then deleted?  If i did make a mess, how do i correct what i've done & start over again w/the Monterey installer?

[msschmitt]

Your second attempt failed because in my original post, the second double-quote was changed to a "smart quote", i.e. it is supposed to be " but got changed to ”. That meant that the quotes were never terminated. The > prompt was asking for you to complete the command.

I fixed the original post. The correct command is:

hdiutil create -o "Installer.dmg" -size 15g -layout SPUD -fs "HFS+J"

As for your questions about how to repeat for another installer: The file name "Installer.dmg" can be anything you want. You could even name it "Install Big Sur.dmg".

[SnakeGirl]

Please forgive my ignorance, but i'm not sure if i understand at all what you mean about the smart quote (i've never used smart quotes & am completely clueless about them).  i did not notice that you had used a smart quote in your instruction so each time when i issued the hdiutil create command in Terminal, i used the same regular (non-smart?) double quotes everywhere.  So it's still not clear what i did wrong each subsequent time i tried to create a new Installer.dmg & how to not get a caret prompt after the 1st time or if there was something else i was supposed to do the 1st time around to prevent it.  Was i supposed to use a smart quote somewhere?  And if/when i do get a caret prompt, what should i enter to get out of that mode & return back to the regular Terminal prompt?

[Technogeezer]

I apologize for the typos in the command. I did not check my copy/paste from the original source and posted a command that was incorrect.

The "smart quotes" are fancy quotation marks that give document a look like you'd find in published materials. Some applications (like word processors such as Microsoft Word) like to automatically replace the "standard" quotation marks you type on the keyboard with smart quotes n the keyboard in order to get that look..

Smart quotes differentiate themselves from standard quotes by being curly or angled:

"This is text in regular quotes"
“This is text in smart quotes”

As you can see, the two are subtly different in this particular typeface. The difference becomes more noticeable in different fonts:

 "This is text in regular quotes in Times New Roman typeface"
“This is text in smart quotes in Times New Roman typeface”

When working in the Terminal, use the regular quotes (the ones that you see on the keyboard).

When you mismatch or mis-use quotes, the command processor (or "shell" in UNIX/Linux parlance) tries to detect if you've completed quoting (matching pairs of quotation marks). If that pairing isn't found, the command processor will ask for more input until the pairing is complete. That's done by displaying the caret prompt( >) sign on the next line. 

The erroneous command line mis-matched quotation mark pairs because of the use of smart quotes rather than standard quotes - which it should not have done. That's why you got the caret prompt. 

To get out of that situation. type Control-C (holding down the control and C keys). Then you type the command again to fix it. Not to worry, the command didn't get executed.

The correct command that you should be able to copy/paste correctly is as @msschmitt says:

hdiutil create -o "Installer.dmg" -size 15g -layout SPUD -fs "HFS+J"

Actually, as long as you don't use spaces in the .dmg file name, you can eliminate the quotations on that part of the command:

hdiutil create -o Installer.dmg -size 15g -layout SPUD -fs "HFS+J"

The quotation marks still need to surround HFS+J, though.

You can pick whatever name you want in place of Installer.dmg. That's how you can differentiate the .dmg files upfront without having to name them later. 

As long as you don't have spaces in the name, you don't have to use quotation marks. If for example I wanted to call the .dmg file that I want to contain the macOS Catalina installer "macOS Catalina bootable installer.dmg", I'd use the following command:

hdiutil create -o "macOS Catalina bootable installer.dmg" -size 15g -layout SPUD -fs "HFS+J"

Note that the volume name that you see in the Finder when you mount the disk image is contained within the disk image, not what the disk image file is named. By default, hdiutil creates the volume contained in the disk image with the name "untitled". The Apple scripts that create the bootable image from the installer .app change the name of the volume, but not the .dmg name. 

[SnakeGirl]

So to provide an update on things, thanks to the help of @Technogeezer & @msschmitt, i've been able to make some more progress on achieving my goal of establishing a nice comprehensive library of VMware Fusion 10 Mac OS X/macOS VMs all in 1 place on a macOS High Sierra host OS.  The ultimate goal would be to have stable working VMs for every version of Mac OS from 10.6 Snow Leopard all the way thru to 13 Ventura (i'm assuming that it is not possible to create VMs for OS X versions 10.5 & earlier, but if this turns out not to be the case, please let me know).

The Mac OS versions that i still have either not yet attempted &/or not yet been able to create successfully are:

10.6 Snow Leopard - i saw something in these Fusion posts about needing a 10.6 Server license or something like that (which i do not have anyway & have yet to investigate) in order to be able to create a 10.6 Server VM in addition to not having a 10.6 Server installer (i have the installation media for regular non-Server 10.6 but this will not install in Fusion 10)

10.9 Mavericks - no 10.9 installer was available for download from the Apple Support article i used, if anyone knows of another Apple link/trusted source where this can be obtained, the info would be much appreciated

10.15 Catalina - the downloaded installer file is somehow different from the other similar .app installers like those for 10.13, 10.14, 11, 12, & 13 in that those installers were very large & ranged anywhere from 5-12 GB in size while the Install Catalina.app is only 19.1 MB in size.  It seems like these larger sized installer files must contain their respective operating systems while the Catalina installer does not.  i'm not sure how to proceed from here, i welcome any suggestions & enlightenment from the Fusion user community.

10.13 Ventura - i have simply not yet attempted this installation as i am feeling a bit intimidated.  i will attempt to install using the same instructions/procedures obtained from @msschmitt & @Technogeezer as used earlier for 11 Big Sur & 12 Monterey but if there is any additional tweaking i need to do to any files, settings, etc. beforehand then any directions/instructions/suggestions from you all are most welcome!

[SnakeGirl]

Paul, thank you so much for the little tutorial on smart quotes!  It was extremely helpful & educational!

[Technogeezer]

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@SnakeGirl wrote:

The Mac OS versions that i still have either not yet attempted &/or not yet been able to create successfully are:

10.6 Snow Leopard - i saw something in these Fusion posts about needing a 10.6 Server license or something like that (which i do not have anyway & have yet to investigate) in order to be able to create a 10.6 Server VM in addition to not having a 10.6 Server installer (i have the installation media for regular non-Server 10.6 but this will not install in Fusion 10)

10.9 Mavericks - no 10.9 installer was available for download from the Apple Support article i used, if anyone knows of another Apple link/trusted source where this can be obtained, the info would be much appreciated

10.15 Catalina - the downloaded installer file is somehow different from the other similar .app installers like those for 10.13, 10.14, 11, 12, & 13 in that those installers were very large & ranged anywhere from 5-12 GB in size while the Install Catalina.app is only 19.1 MB in size.  It seems like these larger sized installer files must contain their respective operating systems while the Catalina installer does not.  i'm not sure how to proceed from here, i welcome any suggestions & enlightenment from the Fusion user community.

10.13 Ventura - i have simply not yet attempted this installation as i am feeling a bit intimidated.  i will attempt to install using the same instructions/procedures obtained from @msschmitt & @Technogeezer as used earlier for 11 Big Sur & 12 Monterey but if there is any additional tweaking i need to do to any files, settings, etc. beforehand then any directions/instructions/suggestions from you all are most welcome!

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You might want to have a look at the pages from Mr. Macintosh on how to download installers for various macOS versions. https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-download-macos-catalina-mojave-or-high-sierra-full-installers/

Apple did not allow for virtualization of macOS in versions prior to 10.6 Mountain Lion. For 10.6 Mountain Lion, the Server version was the only variant that Apple allowed to be used in a virtual machine per its macOS licensing agreement. Apple is no longer selling Mountain Lion Server licenses. Any version from Lion 10.7 on are allowed to be virtualized by Apple's licensing agreements. 

VMware does not support versions of macOS to be virtualized that do not allow it in Apple's licensing agreements. They actually do not allow it so that users don't violate macOS licensing (they've hard coded it into the product).

As far as 10.9 Mavericks goes, t does look like Apple does not provide any downloads of 10.9 Mavericks installers. I would not trust any installers that you might find out on the internet that aren't directly from Apple. 

The Catalina installer probably suffers from something referred to as a "stub installer problem" that's supposedly an issue with the Mac App Store and versions of macOS before 10.14 High Sierra. Try building the Catalina bootable media on a VM that is running 10.14 High Sierra or later. 

small nit: Ventura is not macOS 10.13 - it is macOS 13. Apple stopped using the 10.x notation starting with macOS 11 Big Sur. Catalina 10.15 was the last version to use the macOS 10.x notation.

A Ventura VM will need some special care to install under Fusion versions before 13.0..1. The virtual network adapter type needs to be changed because Fusion 10 doesn't know that Ventura changes things.

• Create the installation .dmg file like you did for Monterey using the command procedures we discussed earlier.
• Go into Fusion and create a new virtual machine. In the "Create a new virtual machine" dialog, pick the option to create a custom virtual machine. Don't drag and drop the .dmg file onto this dialog.
• When prompted for the OS type, choose the latest macOS version you can.
• At the final "Finish" dialog, instead of clicking on the Finish button. click "Customize Settings". Then name and save your VM where you want.
• After the VM is created, open the settings, click on the CD/DVD drive icon, and configure the drive to point to the Ventura bootable installer disk image you created.
• Quit Fusion.
• Find the VM that you saved in the Finder, right click it, and select "Show Package Contents". A Finder window will open that shows the files that make up your virtual machine.
• In that window, find the file with a .vmx extension, or that is labeled as file type "VMConfig". Right click on it and select "Open with..." , and then open it in TextEdit.
• In that file, look for the line that says:

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000e"

• Change it to 

ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"

• Save the file and exit TextEdit.

Now restart Fusion and power on your Ventura VM. 

[msschmitt]

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@SnakeGirl wrote:

10.6 Snow Leopard - i saw something in these Fusion posts about needing a 10.6 Server license or something like that (which i do not have anyway & have yet to investigate) in order to be able to create a 10.6 Server VM in addition to not having a 10.6 Server installer (i have the installation media for regular non-Server 10.6 but this will not install in Fusion 10)

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VMware Fusion will not run Snow Leopard, but will run Snow Leopard Server, due to license restrictions. Snow Leopard Server is sufficient to run PowerPC apps, since this is the last version of OS X with Rosetta.

The way to get it is to call the Apple store and ask to buy it. It cost me $24 + tax back in 2014.

If I recall correctly, it arrives on physical media (probably CD or DVD), which means to install it you need an optical drive.

But note that VMware Fusion is not the only way to virtualize OS X.

For example, I have run the retail Snow Leopard (not Server) on VirtualBox back 2012, but it was a long and painful process. Which is why I bought Snow Leopard Server to run on Fusion!

[SnakeGirl]

Oopsie!  My bad on the "10.13 Ventura", i really did mean to write "13 Ventura", & i guess just wasn't paying close enough attention when proofing!  Honest!

So i'm attempting to create the Ventura installer as i did for Big Sur & Monterey on my host OS High Sierra.  In Terminal i was very careful about the quotes & got past the hdiutil create command w/out getting a caret (>) prompt.

i mounted Installer.dmg as before, but this time when issuing the command

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Ventura.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/untitled

i now get an error message of "Error erasing disk error number (22, 0)" & "An error occurred erasing the disk." after the "Erasing disk:" stage begins where i did not before (i tried this more than once & got the same error).  i did not get this error @ this point in the process w/either Big Sur or Monterey.  What do i need to be doing differently?  Should i be attempting this part of the process on a later version of macOS than 10.13 High Sierra?

[msschmitt]

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@SnakeGirl wrote:

Oopsie!  My bad on the "10.13 Ventura", i really did mean to write "13 Ventura", & i guess just wasn't paying close enough attention when proofing!  Honest!

So i'm attempting to create the Ventura installer as i did for Big Sur & Monterey on my host OS High Sierra.  In Terminal i was very careful about the quotes & got past the hdiutil create command w/out getting a caret (>) prompt.

i mounted Installer.dmg as before, but this time when issuing the command

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Ventura.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/untitled

i now get an error message of "Error erasing disk error number (22, 0)" & "An error occurred erasing the disk." after the "Erasing disk:" stage begins where i did not before (i tried this more than once & got the same error).  i did not get this error @ this point in the process w/either Big Sur or Monterey.  What do i need to be doing differently?  Should i be attempting this part of the process on a later version of macOS than 10.13 High Sierra?

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Apple's instructions for creating a Ventura installer are the same as for recent earlier macOS versions, so your command is right. I would suggest that you create the install image (i.e. the above command) on a later version of macOS -- the highest you can.

And be sure to eject the Shared Support image after creating each installer, else you'll run into trouble. The createinstallmedia command really should be doing that. And your installer.dmg shouldn't be mounted.

[SnakeGirl]

@msschmitt wrote:

For example, I have run the retail Snow Leopard (not Server) on VirtualBox back 2012, but it was a long and painful process.

 i have not worked w/VirtualBox, but you were ultimately able to get a satisfactorily running VM of retail Snow Leopard on it?  Can you give me an idea of what made it such a long & painful process (if you remember since it was so long ago)?

Between that & the Fusion VM of Snow Leopard Server, do you prefer the Fusion VM over the VirtualBox?  If so, what kinds of differences are there in the different types/flavors of VMs (since i have only ever used Fusion for virtualization & have never used VirtualBox, Parallels, or any other virtualization software if you don't count VirtualPC on a really ancient PowerBook)?

If you can recall, how does the retail Snow Leopard OS differ from Snow Leopard Server?

[ColoradoMarmot]

Sorry, please don't discuss circumventing Apple's EULA in these forums - it's against VMWare policy.

[msschmitt]

Retail Snow Leopard is just like any other consumer version of OS X. 

The server version contains some server-specific applications, but is close enough to the consumer version for consumers to use.

I much prefer Fusion over VirtualBox. VirtualBox was finicky to get things working, and overall nowhere near as polished as Fusion. I used it back then for virtualizing Windows, too.

I've never used Parallels.

I'm not going to post what I went through back in 2012 with VirtualBox. I'll just say that the instructions include steps such as "It will say Install Failed, this is expected". And it should be a sign that it drove me to purchase both Snow Leopard Server and Fusion, which was a lot more expensive back then! But well worth it.