Windows 11 ARM w/ VMware Fusion Pro 13 on M1 Max

[jamloga]

I followed the unofficial help guide and was finally able to get Windows 11 booted and somewhat functional in the VM. The problem I seem to be having is no drivers for the USB Controller and some other devices. I have installed VMware Tools, reinstalled, and no luck. I tried using drivers within Windows but no joy. I get this is an ARM version and functionality may suffer, but this is no where near functional. If I go to install any app or download an installer it fails every time. I used Parallels for a year with Windows 11 and have to say it ran brilliantly. I figured I would give VMWare a shot but so far I'm not having the best experience. I am sure there is something I may be missing here but can't seem to figure out why. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[Technogeezer]

Can you give us some more information on the macOS version, the Fusion version, and the Windows 11 build that you're using. Also can you share what apps or installers you're trying to use and more details on where those fail. That kind of behavior isn't common, so we'd like to help get to the bottom of what's going on.

This is what a Windows device manager window looks like in Windows 11 ARM 22H2 release channel builds running on the Fusion 2023 Tech Preview.

You can safely ignore the Base System Device not having a driver. That's not going to impact anything.

Fusion provides a USB controller that's being picked up by Windows 11 and uses the out-of-the-box Windows USB controller driver: Yes, there's a USB controller that's noted in Device Manager as an "Other device" without a driver attached, but also notice there is a USB controller that *does* have a device driver. That's the device that will be used when you tell Fusion to connect a USB device to the VM. I've had USB speakers, disk drives/thumb drives, microphones, webcams, and the occasional Arduino microcontroller connected to the Windows 11 ARM VM. 

Running Windows 11 ARM on Fusion versions prior to the 2023 Tech Preview would complain about a couple of additional devices that had no device driver. Those releases also lacked copy/paste/drag/drop support, 3d acceleration, soft power operations (including guest aware suspend/resume), and video resolution change when you resized the VM's window in the host.  These have been addressed with the advent of expanded VMware Tools support in the 2023 Tech Preview as a public beta, and will be officially addressed in a "production" release later this fall. Windows 11 ARM users should be using the 2023 Tech Preview. 

[jamloga]

Hey, thank you for the reply. 

Mac OS 13.5.2

VMWare Fusion Professional Version 13.0.2 (21581413)

Windows 11 ARM Insider Preview 23H2

Office 365 Apps throws an error. 

[Technogeezer]

<updated response>

Upgrade to Fusion 13.5 now that it's released.  - it's got much better Tools support (more like you're used to with Parallels). The VMware Tools in Fusion 13.5 will get rid of the two unknown devices - those are the communications ports used to provide host/guest interaction and that have no drivers for them in the version of the tools shipped with Fusion 13..0..x. You'll be much happier with that release.

If you have networking connections (e.g. you can reach the Internet with a web browser in that VM), I would first suspect an issue with that Insider Preview when trying to install the release channel Office. The Microsoft 365 version of Office apps install and work fine with Fusion on the release channel Windows 11 ARM 22H2 22621.2361 (they've worked fine for me on for many earlier versions, I've just updated to the lated release channel build).

[RobertD6]

I couldn't get vmware tools to install under fusion 13.5 and the Windows .iso vmware downloaded as part of the Wizard.

Just installed the tech preview update and now vmware tools installed just fine, thanks for this.

[RDPetruska]

Well, I wouldn't use the 2023 Tech Preview any longer, as 13.5.0 was released...

[Technogeezer]

What were the problems you had with installing VMware Tools in the VM? With Fusion 13.5, they install the exact same way that VMware Tools do for Intel Windows versions. The Windows 11 ARM ISO that is created by the new download tool injects video and network drivers in the ISO so that manual installation of the drivers are no longer necessary early in the setup process like they were for Fusion 12.0.x.

There is no "Tech Preview update". There was exactly 1 release of the 2023 Tech Preview release. And as @RDPetruska says, the 2023 tech preview program is OVER and you should stop using it. Remove the Tech Preview and install Fusion 13.5.

[RobertD6]

I was running Fusion 13.5.0 on an Apple M1 Studio, used the fusion new vm dialog for a windows arm install, had Windows up and running but could never get the vmwaretools setup.exe to launch and do anything trying various methods including powershell admin, etc.   So could never get the integrated support for video to make it usable at all.

Now that I have a Windows ARM actually working on apple silicon with vmware tools installed and proper video drivers and such, I'm rather hesitant to attempt back to the Fusion 13.5.0 though could do this with a backup of the vm image.  Since I'm up and running though on apple silicon at this point I'll likely just want for a Fusion 13.5.1 release to make that attempt.

[Technogeezer]

That's pretty strange about the Vmware Tools setup not running on Fusion 13.5.

Not surprising that Powershell didn't do anything for you - it isn't used to install Tools on Fusion 13.5. It's a setup.exe just like x64 Windows.

When you selected "Install VMware Tools" or the like from the GUI menu, did the Tools ISO mount on the virtual CD/DVD drive?

Did Autoplay start and offer to execute setup.exe? 

If not, could you navigate to the D drive in File Explorer and execute setup.exe?

Did the setup.exe start, but just sit in the background? (does option-tab reveal it)?

If you do indeed have VMware Tools i12.3.0 nstalled from the Tech Preview (that supports drag/drop/copy/paste etc) you should be able to run that under Fusion 13.5 without a problem. 

The problem with continuing to use the tech preview is that it's 100% unsupported. Anything new that you find won't get fixed. And it's hard to say when a "13.5.1" release will be forthcoming from VMware.  If you get the time to try it again on Fusion 13.5, let us know and we'll give you a hand trying to figure out what's going on.

[RobertD6]

the vmware tools iso mounted as d:\ just fine on each attempt

running setup.exe from File Explorer, File Explorer as Administrator, cmd.exe, cmd.exe administrator were all the first things I tried.  Would spin and then nothing, no setup.exe process would remain in task manager ever on those attempts.  Alt-tab and clean reboots didn't help reveal a running setup.exe dialog ever for vmware tools.  Honestly wish there was a command line install also available like we get in linux on vsphere.

this was proof of concept before starting replacement of more mac intel silicon with apple silicon since previous attempts couldn't ever get this far with Windows ARM and now at least have a possible path but will likely plan to avoid moving supported infrastructure once 13.5.1 releases and giving it another attempt on the new hardware to be acquired.

[Technogeezer]

It's truly bizarre that this happened in a clean install from the ISO built from the Fusion 13.5 tool.

Did you try booting to safe mode and see if anything else changes?

Anything in the windows event logs?

We are talking US English Windows installation, are we? And what macOS release are you running on?