Stil possible? to get personal use license for VMWare Fusion 12 in Jan 2023 (MacOS Catalina)

[G_Seattle]

Hello,

Does anyone know if it's still possible to get a personal use license code for VMWare Fusion 12?  I'd like to do a fresh install of personal use Fusion on an older mac that maxxes out at Catalina.  So I would need to use Fusion 12 not 13.  

It's been easy to get a personal use license code for Fusion 13, but the same license code does not work on a freshly downloaded .dmg of Fusion 12 (I tried!).

Any ideas would be appreciated - thanks in advance!

[wila]

Hi,

I don't think so.

Like you say, you can only get free Fusion 13 personal licenses now.
Free licenses don't allow you to downgrade the license. In order to be able to do that you need a paid license.

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Wil

[G_Seattle]

Thanks for your reply.  Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that.  I'll proceed with doing the 30-day trial with 12... if it works, I'll just buy it.  Would have been nice to have it for free, but buying a VMware 12 license will be less of a hassle than getting a newer iMac!

[wila]

Hi,

VMware Fusion 12 works on Catalina, but only the first year releases. The 12.5.x versions don't work and require Big Sur as a minimum. VMware forgot to update the documentation on that.

So the highest version of Fusion 12 you can run on Catalina is version 12.1.2.

A download is available from here:

https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=FUS-1212&productId=1040&rPId=5596...

--
Wil

[jjflhrs07]

I noticed you said "I don't think so" ... is this the final answer? I am also trying to install Fusion 12.1.2 on Catalina and would like to use the Personal Use License. I have one for 13 but it doesn't work on 12. It seems odd that I can use 13 for free but have to pay for 12?

[Technogeezer]

Almost everyone here is not a VMware employee so the best they can do is say “I don’t think so” because of that. 

Yes, the ability to downgrade a Fusion 13 license to Fusion 12 is a “perk” they reserve for their paying customers. I agree though that it would be nice if they had released a version of Fusion 12.1 that would accept the 13 licenses. They probably didn’t want to continue offering Fusion 12 personal use licenses after they stopped selling Fusion 12 paid licenses. 

[iansillett]

Hi

I have spent around a couple of hours trying to install and activate/license Fusion 12 on my partner's MacBook Pro late 2013 (MacOS 11.7.3). I also have an account on this Mac. I also have a MacBook Pro 2019 with a personal copy of Fusion 12. I also have a licence for Fusion 11 (user since v 8).

Any way that I come at licensing Fusion 12 or 13 (I can download both) ends up on a page (eg https://customerconnect.vmware.com/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal-13) where there is a requirement to give company details and either buy a licence or have (I think) a 30 day trial.

I have pursued a range of suggestions on forums (I think I recognise some posters here from them) that get me no further - always ending up requiring company details at the point of trying to get a personal licence.

I discovered that my personal licence for Fusion 12 is valid, so it must have been possible at one time. I think it is broken.

If anyone can provide a way that allows one to obtain a new personal licence to any version of Fusion, please describe it. But please don't tell me what it is without having tried it yourself before you recommend it. I've seen many 'this is what you need to do' posts, including a rather rude one from a moderator, that manage to be both insulting and unsuccessful.

Of course, I admit I could have missed something blindingly obvious! Please tell me - I only want the solution.

Thanks for reading.

Best wishes

Ian

[Technogeezer]

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@iansillett wrote:

If anyone can provide a way that allows one to obtain a new personal licence to any version of Fusion, please describe it. But please don't tell me what it is without having tried it yourself before you recommend it. I've seen many 'this is what you need to do' posts, including a rather rude one from a moderator, that manage to be both insulting and unsuccessful.

Of course, I admit I could have missed something blindingly obvious! Please tell me - I only want the solution.

---

Please remember that almost all of us here are users, just like you - not VMware employees. This is a user-to-user forum, not official VMware support staffed by VMware employees. We're trying to be helpful within the limits of our "non-employee" status with VMware and our knowledge. It's possible that we don't know for sure and are suggesting things based on our experiences. These things may or may not work, but you get our best guesses. If you want a sure-fire, no doubt answer, contact VMware Sales as they are the only definitive source for answers about any licensing purchases. 

You didn't miss anything obvious. VMware no longer sells licenses for Fusion 12, only 13. VMware doesn't make it easy to obtain a personal use license for versions that they've stopped selling. Like their paid licenses, their pages only directly point to the current version. 

That being said, I may have found a "back door" that might allow you to get it. It just worked for me (in the interest of full disclosure, I had signed up for a Fusion 12 personal use license with my primary VMware account, so I had to create a second account to see if I could "start fresh").

I used the URL https://customerconnect.vmware.com/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal  -  note the lack of the -13 at the end of the URL.

It asked me for company details. You do not need to provide information about a business even though it asks for one. Simply make up a company name such as "None",  a fictitious title, and fill in the rest of the prompts with "Other" or Unknown.

It gave me a license key and details for where to download Fusion 12.2.5 (note that even though the download description says it is for Apple Silicon, Fusion 12 is not supported on Apple Silicon Macs). The key would not install on Fusion 13, so I'm assuming that it will install on Fusion 12 (I'd have to uninstall Fusion 13 to check that out for sure).

[iansillett]

I used the URL https://customerconnect.vmware.com/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal  -  note the lack of the -13 at the end of the URL.

It asked me for company details. You do not need to provide information about a business even though it asks for one. Simply make up a company name such as "None",  a fictitious title, and fill in the rest of the prompts with "Other" or Unknown.

It gave me a license key and details for where to download Fusion 12.2.5 (note that even though the download description says it is for Apple Silicon, Fusion 12 is not supported on Apple Silicon Macs). The key would not install on Fusion 13, so I'm assuming that it will install on Fusion 12 (I'd have to uninstall Fusion 13 to check that out for sure).

Thanks. This worked as you described and I appreciate your help.

Re: Please remember that almost all of us here are users, just like you - not VMware employees. This is a user-to-user forum, not official VMware support staffed by VMware employees.

I do appreciate that most posters here are fellow users - the post that I referred to had a label 'Admin' and a description of 'Community Manager' so I feel that my comment was reasonable. It should not be so difficult to download the personal version. It is hard to believe that this is not a known issue by VMWare.

But - once again - thanks for your help.

[Technogeezer]

I’m glad this bit of “web sorcery” worked for you. I have no idea how long they’ll keep this process active but for now it seems to work. 

I think that VMware officially will say they no longer make personal use licenses available for Fusion 12. My opinion is they wouldn’t give out this link or even admit this link exists because they don’t sell Fusion 12 licenses “as new” any more. 

I also suspect that this “back door” exists because they didn’t clean up after themselves when Fusion 13 was released. They didn’t take the time to remove the functionality to generate a Fusion 12 personal use license in the back-end systems and left the web page to register for the license in their web content management system. One can argue whether leaving this in place was intentional or inadvertent. 

[wila]

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@iansillett wrote:

the post that I referred to had a label 'Admin' and a description of 'Community Manager' so I feel that my comment was reasonable.

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Hi,

Very reasonable.. except that there is no way in this forum software to see who you are replying towards unless you quote someone like I just did.
Not your fault, but the forum software, which is changed every couple of years and seemingly gets worse every time.

--
Wil

[jjflhrs07]

Thank you! The URL you provided did give me the option to register Fusion 12 and get a license key, and I was able to use it to license Fusion 12.1.2 on Catalina. I couldn't tell if the key was for a 30-day trial or the Personal Use License (the button to press just said Free Trial), I guess I'll find out in 30 days if it expires. 

By the way, I didn't mean to be rude asking about the "I don't think so" comment... just didn't know if that answer was still being considered or was the end of the road.

I really appreciate the knowledgeable volunteers who help the rest of us get by!

[iansillett]

Just adding this in case it helps later searchers...

I found the same process (having to make up a non-existent company, number of employees, etc) in order to get a licence - I think it's a personal licence - for the current version of VMWare Fusion (13.01 at time of writing), as well.

And I don't see how to properly quote another poster (my ignorance) but that's going too far off-thread. Will look elsewhere! 🙂

[wila]

Hi,

@jjflhrs07Don't worry. I don't tend to take much personal down here. I understand all the frustration. Sadly it isn't something I can control. Just glad that @Technogeezer found the workaround.

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@iansillett wrote:

And I don't see how to properly quote another poster (my ignorance) but that's going too far off-thread. Will look elsewhere! 🙂

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LOL.. it's hidden.
You click the 3 dots on the toolbar which then shows the "Quote" icon. 🙂
Don't ask me why.

It's like the "you must add a company name"' when signing up for a personal license. It makes little sense.
The product manager of Fusion/Workstation knows, but VMware is a big company and the whole process of registering for something is aimed at companies, not individual users.

Having stuff like that addressed apparently is not high on the list.
Even if they ever would get it addressed, personally I would wonder when the problem re-appears (rofl). Oh well..

--
Wil

[PapaBroly]

Coming back to this to ask if you had by any chance been charged at the end of said 30-day free trial. I have decided at 5:30 am that I am not nearly smart enough to try and tackle this going in blind and unfortunately did not find this thread before caving and selecting the trial period. I have deleted the application but I fear any outstanding charge. I may be misunderstanding this entire process, however. I would appreciate any help I can get. 

[wila]

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@PapaBroly wrote:

Coming back to this to ask if you had by any chance been charged at the end of said 30-day free trial. I have decided at 5:30 am that I am not nearly smart enough to try and tackle this going in blind and unfortunately did not find this thread before caving and selecting the trial period. I have deleted the application but I fear any outstanding charge. I may be misunderstanding this entire process, however. I would appreciate any help I can get. 

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You'll be fine.
After the 30 days trial runs out,  you can't start a virtual machine anymore until you buy a license.
That's it.

There are no automatic charges because you forgot about it.

-
Wil