Fusion 10 on High Sierra - Guests Do Not Start - Host Does Not Support Virtualizing Real Mode

[jchivian]

Guests will not start. Message is...

"This host does not support virtualizing real mode. The Intel VMX Unrestricted Guest feature is necessary to run this virtual machine on an Intel processor.  Module CPUIDEarly power on failed. Failed to start virtual machine."

This is true regardless of guest OS or virtual machine version and is a very poor start to an upgrade from v8.5 to v10.0 Pro.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2009)

2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

[Mikero]

Unfortunately your Mac's CPU is unsupported.

System requirements for VMware Fusion

Please send us a note and we'll be happy to issue a refund.

desktop-services@vmware.com

[jchivian]

Unfathomable, but thank you for the information.   Next question... How do I revert back to v8.5?

[louistaljaard]

You should really add earlier model Intel i7's to the supported list. The CPU's are more than capable of running multiple VM's simultaneously, the typical use case of running only one at a time would be a breeze.

[acarroll4161]

I am having the same issue and I guess I need to revert back to 8.5... how do I go about doing this?

Thanks

[markn456]

At a minimum you should not let the install proceed if the processor is unsupported. Even so, worked fine on 8.5 what not just detected the processor and not leverage that feature if not exist rather than leaving people high and dry on the update.

[louistaljaard]

NO! Please do NOT prevent people from running Fusion 10 on older i7-based Macs. This CPU compatibility issue only arises with Windows VM's. There is absolutely no issue with running MacOS or OS X VM's under Fusion 10. You need to distinguish between these cases and inform your users that it's a "Windows VM"-only restriction.

(Or better yet add full support for the few extra older Intel i7-based Macs, there are not many of these models that are currently not supported).

[Calvin_Zhang]

I had upgraded to Fusion 10 from 8.5 on my mid-2010 iMac, I could not open any vm regardless if it is Windows, Linux or Debian OS. Therefore It is not only Windows-VMs based issue, it affects all vms in my case. The VM Fusion 10 will be running no problem but I just can't open my vms if it has older mac hardware.

There is a work-around but not courage to do so because it causes extremely slow vm startup....

Quit Fusion 10 and create the file if it doesn't exist:

/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/config

In this file add the line:

monitor.allowLegacyCPU = "true"

I still suggest to use VMware Fusion 8 or 8.5 on older Mac hardware till they have added back the supported cpus.

Calvin

[CocZamudio]

Brilliant: Worked for my mid-2010 Mac Pro with 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon. Thanks!

[j0ystick]

This is the worst move VMWare ever did. Really.

The fix is almost useless, the VMs started with that flag are unusable. 15minutes to boot win10. With Fusion 8.x on the same machine (an i7 with 32gb of ram) it took 4-5sec to boot. The fact is that iMacs with i7 made in 2010 are more than capable of being used as production machines today. Dropping support for those machines is not reasonable and not in line with the update cycle of the typical mac user.

[Kabot]

The mail link below does not work -

Diagnostic information for administrators:

Generating server: BLUPR05MB1970.namprd05.prod.outlook.com

desktop-services@vmware.com
Remote Server returned '< #5.7.1 smtp;550 5.7.1 TRANSPORT.RULES.RejectMessage; the message was rejected by organization policy>'

Can you send or publish one which does?

[ColoradoMarmot]

Nine year old machines?

They won't run Mojave either.

[JimOQuinn]

"This is the worst move VMWare ever did. Really."

A bit of a stretch, but did you read this document first?  Why not revert back to v8?
-  VMware Knowledge Base

Fusion 10.x

Hardware requirements:

• All Macs launched in 2011 or later are supported except:
  2012 Mac Pro “Quad Core” using the Intel Xeon W3565 Processor.
• In addition the following are supported:
  2010 Mac Pro “Six Core”, “Eight Core” and “Twelve Core”.
• Minimum 4 GB of RAM
• 750 MB of free disk space for VMware Fusion and at least 5 GB for each virtual machine

[ColoradoMarmot]

8.x isn't supported on High Sierra.  They left a gap, and while annoying, expecting 8 or 9 year old hardware to still be supported isn't realistic either.

[JimOQuinn]

While 8.x may not be supported on High Sierra, but it does run with little to no issues.  Yes?  Sample size of one here, but I've had no major issues with 8.X on High Sierra.  No I've had my issues with High Sierra, but none related to VMware.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Make sure you backup the VM's regularly - for me, it's not worth the risk.