What would be the best upgrade and migration path?

[oscar1298]

My current MacBook Pro running Fusion Pro 8.5.10 is about to be replaced with a new MacBook Pro.

Although I skipped Fusion v10, I figure it's time to upgrade to Fusion Pro 11.  It would be helpful to keep some of my existing VMs (mostly various species of *nix).

There are two obvious paths:

a.) Upgrade current MacBook to Fusion 11 Pro, install new tools on current VMs, the migrate the license / installation to the new MacBook.

b.) Hmmm. A few days ago I could download Fusion 8.something from MyVMware, but that now seems to have disappeared.  I have a copy of VMware-Fusion-8.5.6-5234762.dmg on the current Mac.  Use the DMG to migrate version 8, update version 8, migrate, move VMs and then upgrade?  (This sounds sub-optimal.)

c.)  Something else?

TIA.

Oscar

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi Oscar,

Just for your reference, the download to Fusion 8.5.10 is here:

Download VMware Fusion 8

But... as you are talking about a new Macbook Pro, it will come with High Sierra or even Mojave and you're saving yourself a lot of headache by going with option a).

Install Fusion 11 on your current macbook pro (you didn't mention the host OS, but if it is 10.11 -El Capitan- or later then you're fine)

Note that there's also a hardware requirement : VMware Fusion? | FAQs installation

if you are using your Fusion personally then you don't even need to "migrate" as you can keep Fusion on all your personal devices without having to buy a new license ( What is VMware Fusion? | FAQs Licensing and upgrades​ )

After install Fusion 11 upgrade your VMs, commit all snapshots and shut them down.

Then you can copy the full bundle of each VM and register them on the new machine (File -> Open)

Hope this helps,

--

Wil

[oscar1298]

Wil,

late 2013 running High Sierra.  Upgrading to 11 is definitely feasible.

Academic use, actually.  Departmental administration / support.

Thank you for the pointer to the download.

All done.  Thank you for your help.

Oscar