I have a Mac Mini from late 2014 running Big Sur and VMWare Fusion Player 12.2.4. My goal is to create a Mojave VM so I can play some 32 bit games that won't work from Catalina and up. If you have a way to do that, a sure-fire way, feel free to bypass everything I've tried and tell me how to do it!
I used the App store to get the Mojave upgrade DMG file and tried to create a new VM from that, but since it's only an upgrade file, it doesn't work. (That's my guess.) Then I looked online and found a few articles about creating VMs in different software. One had directions to create one in VirtualBox, so I followed that and tried making a VM from the Mojave install image I got from there. (I figure I'll keep the VM in a sandbox, so I can do that for at least a test setup.) The Mojave install ISO file worked in VirtualBox, but the VM is absurdly slow. The relevant point is that VirtualBox did find that install ISO okay.
I've used VMWare before, so I checked on the latest version and got VMWare Fusion Player 12.2.4 and installed that on the Mac Mini.
From there, I've tried a few ways to create a Mojave VM:
1) I tried creating a VM from the Restore Partition from my Mac Mini. I get the Apple logo and progress bar and when it tries to reboot, I get a smaller black window that resizes to a larger black window, and then I get EFI info that flashes by too fast to read. Then it goes back to the smaller black window and continually repeats. I think the EFI messages are about booting from a disk, then from the network, but it's hard to tell.
2) I tried using my Mojave upgrade DMG from the App Store, but I can't get past the Restore utility. I didn't expect more, since it's just an upgrade file.
3) I used the Mojave install ISO I downloaded. I found I had to mount the ISO as a drive, then drag the Mojave file and drop it on the window for creating a VM. It takes a long time (I think over an hour) to prepare the install media, but it reports it as bad media. (This is why I pointed out that VirtualBox could use that same media to create a VB VM - VB doesn't have an issue with the data on that ISO.)
I'm considering several possibilities, but need help for each one:
1) If I can create a VM based on the restore partition of my current Mac Mini, then I can downgrade it from Big Sur to Mojave. I haven't done it, but I've read about it being done. But I have to get past that infinite loop it hits on restarting.
2) Is there a good source for a Mojave install file? Or some way to use the upgrade file?
3) What about converting the VB VM to VMWare? I have seen there are web pages talking about doing that. What do I lose by doing it? Are there issues with, say, file formatting and storage that would make that slower than a VM created directly in VMWare? While this might be doable, there are reasons I'd rather not do this, since I'd rather use a good source for the Mojave install file.
It seems to me that #1 is my best choice if I can get by the infinite loop, but I'm open to other ideas. The goal is to get a working Mojave system I can play some games in. (Not shoot-'em-ups, but games more like the newer redone Myst games.) I've tried a number of different things (like VirtualBox, as I mentioned, and UTM). I thought VMWare would "just work," like it has with my other VMs in the past. I'm at the point I'm seriously thinking I should just downgrade my MacMini to Mojave. (I do have a Mac Mini from 2009 that could run the games I want, but it doesn't output sound to HDMI, which means I'd have to buy an HDMI audio injector to make it work with my entertainment system.) I'm saving downgrading the 2014 Mac Mini or using the older one with an audio injector as my last options.
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