Unable to boot and install macOS ISO on M1 with Fusion Player

[haosun222]

Hi,

Trying to install Ventura macOS with VMware fusion player, but it can not detect the system in the iso file.

After downloading the Ventura iso ( I also manually created one), I dragged and dropped the iso in "select the Installation method".
Fusion player, however, did not start the macOS installation process but led me to the "choose operating system" page, where I can only select windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. The VM will not boot if I choose an incorrect kernel.

I also tried Monterey, but still failed. Seems the fusion player does not support installing and booting a macOS VM on M1. Is there anything I did wrong, if so, what do I need to do to fix this?

Thanks.

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

Virtualizing macOS is not supported in Fusion 13 on Apple Silicon. Documentation states that only Fusion 13 on Intel Macs can virtualize macOS. There’s nothing you can do to fix it. 

Use UTM (free or low cost if you buy it from the Mac App Store) or an open source utility such as VirtualBuddy (free) if you need macOS virtualization. Parallels is also an option but it will cost you much, much more than the other 2 options - and it isn’t much more functional for macOS virtualization than the other options.  All of these options that let you virtualize macOS use Apple’s high level virtualization framework, which is pretty basic and doesn’t have all the functions of Fusion.

[haosun222]

I see, thank you very much for the kind explanation. This makes me curious about whether VMware plans to add support for this in the future, or whether this will not be supported ( since this use case seems less needed for normal users).

[Technogeezer]

I don’t work for VMware, so I can’t be sure what their plans are. I have heard some comments in the forums that it’s something that they’re interested in, but no commitments or timeframes are available. 

[haosun222]

Sure. Again, thank you for the information!