Problem installing OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as a guest operating system in VMware Fusion 10

[SnakeGirl]

i’m having a problem installing OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as a guest operating system in VMware Fusion 10.1.6 using the installer downloaded from Apple (filename Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.dmg).  During the attempted installation, i get the following 2 screens/messages overlaid w/an error msg.:

i have no idea what any of this means, what do i need to do differently?

[Technogeezer]

Can you describe how you attempted to install Mountain Lion?

Did you

• download the .dmg file from Apple
• Open the DMG
• Run the installer contained in the .dmg - that should have installed something like Install Mac OS X 10.8.app into your Applications folder
• In fusion, Select File -> New to create a new VM in Fusion.
• In the dialog "Select an installation method", drag and drop the "Install ..... . app" file from your Applications folder to the dialog

[SnakeGirl]

Hi there Paul (Technogeezer),

i 1st downloaded the Mountain Lion .dmg installer file from Apple using the download link in Apple Support article #HT211683 titled “How to download and install macOS” under the 4th section down called “Use a web browser” where i clicked on the 4th item down which is the “Mountain Lion 10.8” download link.  (i did this on a Mac running Snow Leopard.)  The .dmg file that was downloaded was 4.72 GB in size & i modified the filename slightly to “Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.dmg”.

Then in VMware Fusion 10.1.6 i selected File/New from the menu bar.  A window w/the title “Select the Installation Method” popped up.  i dragged the downloaded .dmg file to the designated spot in the window.  The next window that appeared was “Create a New Virtual Machine”.  i continued from there to the “Choose Operating System” window from which i selected “OS X 10.8”.  The next window to follow was the “Finish” window showing the VM default setup (i did not Customize Settings).  i clicked Finish in that window & then from there got a “Save As:” window.  After clicking Save on that final window, i received the next several windows/screens.  i have included screenshots from each step i followed in this procedure.

Additional notes: 

i had previously also downloaded the installers for 10.7 Lion, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, & 10.13 High Sierra from Apple using this same procedure & corresponding download links from the same Apple Support article HT211683.  However, when i attempted to create VMs for each of these versions of Mac OS using exactly the same installation procedure described above, all of them failed except for 10.13 High Sierra, & it was the only version for which i was able to successfully create a VM.  So i concluded that there must be differences in the various .dmg installers which are beyond the scope of my technical understanding.  i would just like to understand why only 1 of the .dmg files worked out of so many when all were downloaded the same way from the same trusted Apple site/source.

i later also tested what would happen if i used .iso installer files instead of .dmg.  i downloaded several .iso Mac OS installer files for the same versions of Mac OS downloaded above from Apple & attempted to create VMs from Fusion 10 using the same procedure described above & was only successful in creating the 10.7 Lion VM from a downloaded .iso file.

Does Fusion 10 have more difficulty creating from .dmg installer files vs. .iso installers?  Is it better to use .iso format rather than .dmg?  If so, is there a way i can create my own .iso files from the previously downloaded .dmg files since the .dmg files were downloaded from a trusted & reliable source?

Most of these things are technically way over my head & i appreciate any help & additional information & enlightenment you or the rest of the community can provide!

Thank you so much!

-Diana (SnakeGirl)

[Technogeezer]

Try this:

Open the Mountain Lion.dmg file and double click the .pkg file found in the .dmg per the Apple Support article.  It should install an installer application to your /Applications folder, then open the installer. Quit the installer at that point so that it does not try to install macOS on your existing system.  

Now look in your Applications folder (in the Finder's menu bar click Go -> Applications). You should find the installation app for Mountain Lion that the .dmg placed on your Mac's hard drive. It should be named something like "Install MacOS ...... .app"

Drag that installation application to the "Select the Installation Method" dialog when you create a new VM. Fusion should then recognize that you're creating a macOS VM and set the OS type and other properties depending on what version it finds.

You are correct in that there are differences in the installers that Apple provides. In particular, El Capitan and later have the documented ability to create bootable installation media. In prior releases, you had to run a special Apple utility to create bootable media. There probably are other changes due to changes that Apple's made to macOS along the way.. 

[SnakeGirl]

Hi there Paul,

Thank you so much for your suggestion, it totally worked!  Apparently the different groups of installers from that Apple Support article were not all of the same format, & i was totally clueless about the differences btwn .dmg & .app macOS installer formats & how they are to be used when creating VMware Fusion 10 VMs for macOS.

After successfully creating the Mountain Lion 10.8 VM, i went ahead & did the same for Lion 10.7, Yosemite 10.10, El Capitan 10.11, & Sierra 10.12 since i had already previously downloaded the installers for these.  i did not need to do this for High Sierra 10.13 because that installer was already in a compatible format for & already had been tested as working in Fusion 10.  i did also go ahead & create the VM for Mojave 10.14 using the previously downloaded installer for Mojave as is, even though the list of macOS operating systems shown in Fusion 10 only went up to 10.13 (i tried the install selecting the 10.13 option even though i was installing 10.14).  

However, this method did not work for Catalina 10.15:  i was unable to drag & drop the installer into the “Create a New Virtual Machine” window, the installer would not "drop" into the designated space.  So i was able to successfully create the VMs for macOS 10.7, 10.8, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, & 10.14 using Fusion 10.1.6.

Do you or anyone else know if it is possible to create a Catalina 10.15 VM using Fusion 10 (on host operating system High Sierra 10.13.6 on a 2016 MacBook Pro w/16 GB RAM)?  What might be reasons for the Fusion installer window to not accept an installer file?  (i tried the same w/the installers for Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, & Ventura 13 & none of those installers would drop into the Fusion installer window either).

i will post a new question to start a new topic on this since you have provided the answer that solved the problem for this thread.

Thanks again, you totally made my day Friday & my weekend w/your help!

-Diana (SnakeGirl)

[Technogeezer]

Just to be clear, when you say you dragged and dropped  "the installer" onto the  "Create a new virtual machine" dialog, do you mean that you tried to drag the "Install macOS Catalina.app" file that was installed into the Applications folder by Software Update when you used the instructions in the Apple article?

[SnakeGirl]

Yes, that is exactly what i meant, although i should have said that i was unable to drag & drop the Install macOS Catalina.app installer file into the "Select the Installation Method" window or dialog (rather than the "Create a New Virtual Machine" window/dialog).  When i try/tried to drag & drop that installer into the "Install from disc or image" space in the "Select the Installation Method" window/dialog from a Finder window, when i release the file to drop it, it just goes right back to the Finder window from which it was dragged & won't drop or be accepted into that "Install from disc or image" space.  

This is also the same thing that happens if i attempt to drag & drop the "Install macOS Big Sur.app", "Install macOS Monterey.app", or "Install macOS Ventura.app" into that space which leads me to another question:  is Mojave 10.14 the highest version of macOS that can be installed as a guest operating system in Fusion 10 if my host OS is High Sierra 10.13?

i also have Fusion 13, but i was unable to install that into host operating system High Sierra 10.13, it required Big Sur 11 or later.  Is there any version of Fusion such as 11 or 12 that will enable me to create/install macOS VMs 10.15, 11, 12, & 13 onto the same High Sierra 10.13 host OS?  Or is this more of a hardware issue & have more to do w/the fact that i'm trying to create these VMs on a 2016 MacBook Pro w/16 GB RAM?

[SnakeGirl]

By the way, i did locate the VMware Compatibility Guide in which it appears that (if i am using this guide correctly,) under Fusion 10.0, it looks like macOS 10.13 might be the highest version guest macOS supported & "Update and View Results" on macOS 10.14 & 10.15 yields the resulting message "Sorry, there were no Guest OS matching your search criteria. Please refine your search and try again."

Does this mean that it is not possible to install/create a 10.15 Catalina guest VM on Fusion 10 at all or is it just not "officially" supported but it might still be possible to create a working version even though not "officially" supported?  i wonder because i was able to successfully create the 10.14 Mojave VM on it even though this guide shows 10.14 as not really supported & the list of available Apple OS X operating systems to choose from when creating a VM in Fusion 10 only goes up to macOS 10.13 (see attached screenshots).