Upgrading from 8.5.10 to version 10

[MrYeti]

Hi 

I have VMWARE Fusion 8.5.10 running on MacOS Sierra 10.12.6. 
I can only upgrade my Mac to MacOS High Sierra due to the age of the hardware, so am looking to upgrade my license to Fusion 10.x 
I cant find a) a link to upgrade or b) buy the link to buy 10.x software 

I have been able to download the version 10 dmg, but I guess thats useless without a license key which VMWARE are making it incredibly hard to buy.

Would you be able to provide guidance or links how I can upgrade or buy?

Its really confusing. My software says there are no more versions to upgrade to which is right, but I cant work out how to skip to the next version. 

I am in the United Kingdom

Thanks for all advice
Rich

[dempson]

As far as I'm aware, there is no longer any way to get a new or upgrade licence for Fusion 10 - that version was discontinued several years ago.

VMware only sells the current version of Fusion, which at present is Fusion 12 (Player or Professional). Fusion 12 requires macOS 10.15 Catalina or later.

If you buy VMware Fusion 12 Professional (not Player), it includes the right to downgrade the licence to Fusion 11 Professional. A Fusion 11 Professional licence would let you run Fusion 11.0.x or 11.5.x on a single computer. Version 11.5 runs on macOS 10.13 High Sierra (later minor updates added support for 10.14 Mojave and limited support for Catalina). Version 11.0 runs on macOS 10.12 Sierra.

You didn't mention which Mac model you have, but you should carefully check the system requirements, since they changed between Fusion 8.5 and 10.

Fusion 10 or 11 requires a 2011 or later Mac model, with special rules for the Mac Pro (must be a 2010/2012 Mac Pro with a 6-core or 8-core processor, not 4-core).

If you have a Late 2009 or 2010 Mac model then your Mac can run up to High Sierra but cannot run Fusion 10 or 11.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Fusion/11/rn/fusion-11-release-notes.html

[MrYeti]

Thank you dempson.

my iMac is mid 2011 hardware 

[dempson]

In that case your 2011 iMac should be able to run Fusion 11.0 through 11.5.3 on macOS High Sierra. You can't run Fusion 11.5.5 or later, since Fusion 11.5.5 raised the minimum to macOS Mojave.

You won't be able to buy an "upgrade" to Fusion 12, because version 8.5 is too old to qualify for upgrade pricing to version 12.

That means you will have to buy a new licence for VMware Fusion 12 Professional. Once you have it, the licence key will apparently also work with VMware Fusion 11 Professional. If it doesn't, you should be able to access downgrade options in the licence management section of your VMware Customer Portal.

[MrYeti]

Thank you dempson 

I will give that a go, it’s a shame there is no upgrade option as they are usually cheaper. But I suppose that’s my fault for not upgrading sooner.

thanks again and stay safe

[MrYeti]

Sorry me again

The fusion 12 pro is really expensive but they talk about fusion player, which seems to have a free personal use license unless I am reading it wrong. I need my fusion to spin up one windows10 image on my Mac - would player be able to do this ? Would I be able to downgrade it in the same way ? And are there limitations I am missing ?

thanks as always 

[ColoradoMarmot]

The free player cannot be downgraded.  Only real licenses can do that.

To be fair, that version of OSX isn't supported anymore, so probably shouldn't be on the internet at all because of known security vulnerabilities.  It's probably time to look at budgeting for a current machine.