VMware Fusion 12 running on Apple Silicon

[Sjd181969]

Hi

Will Fusion ever operate on macs running on Apple Silicon chips as it’s important that I can continue to run my x64 Linux vm images if I upgrade to a new Apple silicon based Mac 

I couldn’t see any official comment on this from VMware 

[ColoradoMarmot]

AFAIK, it'll use it if the hardware supports it, but it's not required.  There's a lot of windows machines themselves that don't have that capability.

[gringley]

I took one of my Windows VMs, turned off VBS/Hypervisor/IOMMU and oddly enough could not launch a Microsoft Defender Application Guard (WDAG) window.  No error message simply nothing happened.  The event log was full of errors from Hyper-V not being able to start.  With VBS on the new window takes a minute or so to launch on my system.  It is true that Microsoft does not support WDAG on virtualized systems, but then they state to run it in a VM nested virtualization must be enabled.  WDAG is used by Office for untrusted files as well as for Edge.

The message has been that Fusion 12.1.0 contains a workaround that allows Macs that do not have proper support to run nested virtualization but the performance is terrible.  I saw the discussions where people with MacBook Pros with the base CU option had the nested virtualization hardware feature while those who ordered the faster CPU did not.  It is clear that with Fusion 12 and Big Sur things are very different now with virtualization performance, and if I went out and bought a new Mac and things did not work at all or very poorly I would be blown away and very upset.  I think there should be some sort of guide to which Mac CPU options fully support virtualization and which ones require the workarounds.

[VirtualMac2009]

More examples:

UTM Virtual Machines

https://getutm.app

https://mac.getutm.app

[KarthikeyanM]

Hi All,

Any timeline when will VMware Fusion work in M1 chip? I need to run macOS VM in VMWare Fusion12. Thank you.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Not yet.  They're working on it, but it'll be done when it's done.  Keep in mind that it's likely that only Big Sur will be virtualizable (ever)

[VirtualMac2009]

"Keep in mind that it's likely that only Big Sur will be virtualizable (ever)".

Why? Apple said that the transition to Apple Silicon would take two years and that they will support Intel x86 Macs for many years.

[dempson]

Apple said they would support Macs with Intel processors for several years, i.e. new macOS versions will support Intel Macs. That does not extend to supporting older Intel-only macOS versions running on Apple Silicon Macs.

Big Sur runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. I expect this will continue for a few future versions of macOS, probably with a shrinking list of supported Intel models each year or two. Eventually the point will come where a future macOS version only runs on Apple Silicon Macs.

When VMware releases a version of Fusion which runs on Apple Silicon Macs, it is expected to support ARM-based guest operating systems. That should include virtualising macOS Big Sur and later (as a guest) on Apple Silicon Macs. In this context, the guest Big Sur is running ARM code, so you have a virtualised Apple Silicon Mac. Since Big Sur includes Rosetta 2 code translation, that means the virtualised Big Sur could also run Intel-only applications, provided the applications work on Big Sur on an Apple Silicon Mac (under Rosetta), and there aren't any licensing issues which prevent Rosetta from being available in a VM.

It will not be possible to virtualise macOS Catalina or earlier (as a guest) on an Apple Silicon Mac, because macOS Catalina and earlier only run on Intel Macs, and you can't virtualise an Intel operating system on an ARM processor. (Rosetta 2 doesn't help: it only translates instructions used by applications, not the entire Intel instruction set and architecture needed to implement an operating system.)

The only way Catalina or earlier could run on an Apple Silicon Mac would be for someone to release an Intel Mac emulator. Emulating a different processor is a lot harder than virtualising on the same processor.

If you need to be able to keep running macOS Catalina or earlier in future (e.g. because you need to run older Mac applications which don't work on an Apple Silicon Mac under Big Sur), you must keep a working Intel Mac, either running the macOS version you need, or running a newer macOS version and virtualising the required older version (if the application you need works in virtualisation - some don't, e.g. due to requiring 3D graphics support).

There might never be a way to run macOS Catalina or earlier (or Intel-only versions of Windows, Linux and other operating systems) on an Apple Silicon Mac.

[Uxian]

Catalina has apparently already been run on M1 using QEMU but the performance was so slow as to be practically unusable: Virtualizing OpenCore and x86 macOS on Apple Silicon (and even iOS!) 

[AndrewBytes]

So here's my concern; 

I may be able to control Windows - reload all my software into Windows 10 ARM (which is beta...) but realistically - my other VM isn't windows, it's more Linux on proprietary intel based hardware - which runs flawlessly in VM environment (Intel!) they will never release an ARM version just so I can run this on Apple - I'll need to switch to a Dell (yuck!!) or something else to work on.

So I plead with VMWare - don't leave me hanging bros!! Make some Rosetta emulation to flawlessly emulate the X86 world so we can just clone our macs, then RUN without any pain and suffering! VMWare removes the hardware layer from being an issue and has made my Windows experience MUCH more stable and I appreciate and respect the environment now. But since I download ISO's from vendors and install them into VMWare Fusion (intel) I'm gonna need that ability soon on VMWare Mx! HELP ME HELP YOU!!! 

[VirtualMac2009]

Hopefully, also soon for VMware Fusion:

Parallels 16.5 Can Virtualize ARM Windows Natively on M1 Macs With Up to 30% Faster Performance

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/14/parallels-desktop-native-m1-support

[soren0]

Somehow I can't figure out how to quote but to quote the post above me.

Hopefully, also soon for VMware Fusion:

Parallels 16.5 Can Virtualize ARM Windows Natively on M1 Macs With Up to 30% Faster Performance

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/14/parallels-desktop-native-m1-support

------

It's called competition, I would hate to leave VMWare for Parallels but if VMWare doesn't step it up, people might leave.

I wish there was a timeline of some kind, this year, next year, not going to happen due to complications, etc

[soren0]

Parallels 16.5 Can Virtualize ARM Windows Natively on M1 Macs With Up to 30% Faster Performance

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/14/parallels-desktop-native-m1-support

------

[DrBigJim]

Parallels won the race. I think that Parallels had a head start by implementing the Hypervisor Framework and published to the App Store. Plus Parallels worked with Apple to bring their virtualization product to Apple Silicon. It just seems to me that VMware is like Microsoft, stuck in what was and is no longer relevant.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Fusion 12 uses the Apple hypervisor framework too, and works with Apple as well - they just don't issue press releases.

Having been around since 1.0, this is pretty typical.  Parallels releases an early beta that's half baked to get the press, then they release their consumer focused product first.  Then fusion releases a more stable enterprise-class product.  Unless you have an M1 today, meh.  If you do, well, then it's time to decide if hopping back and forth is worth the effort.

I do wish VMWare could do more pre-release press or beta builds.  It's odd in this case that we don't have a tech preview...I'm hoping that means there's an easter egg coming!

[DrBigJim]

I could not tell from the previous installation. I have the M1 Mac mini currently, and right now I am more asking the question of whether or not Windows is really needed. I have been testing out the Parallels technical preview and have primarily done exactly what I have been doing in VMware Fusion on the intel Macs that I have had, boot up the Windows machine and perform updates and then shut down the machine. I have used VMware virtualization off and on since the first version of VMware workstation. I have tested out other products and generally stay vendor agnostic. I know VMware has announced that they would support Apple Silicon, but it would be better if they actually released it on the day that people were able to purchase the Apple Silicon Macintoshes rather than wait for release and then work on migration. This is what happen during the Windows Vista release, vendors were not prepared.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Blame apple on that one - not only did they announce before availability, they've been making massive changes to the underlying OS infrastructure (some I'm sure at the behest of VMWare) along the way.

The current M1 is the lowest-end machine in the apple lineup.  I know there's folks who want to run VM's on it, but would guess that the bulk of the people who do are looking (like me) at the M2's this fall.

[DrBigJim]

Actually it is not Apple, but VMware is completely at fault. They have had since WWDC last year to prepare the software to work with Apple Silicon. VMware could have purchased one of the transition kits and ensured that Fusion was ready when the hardware was released. Apple switched to their own chips because intel could not control their quality problems well as production problems. Yes the M1 is the lower end of the line, and considering that it outperforms many computers higher end machines is pretty telling.

[nobody456]

'runs x86 VMs' is the value proposition for me

'migrate off MacBooks, MacOS, Fusion, etc.' seems like the inevitable path forward

sad as that may be... it has been a good decade+ long run

[DrBigJim]

x86 is irrelevant for me, using a stable platform without major maintenance involved is more important to me. If you want x86 virtual machines, then you can utilize something that emulates x86 on a RISC platform like QEMU.

[Uxian]

As I understand it the transition kits didn't support virtualisation so while a lot of companies could prepare their software in advance, VMWare could not.

[DrBigJim]

It is just VMware being lazy then to not have Fusion ready at launch.