Please Help - My version of VMware fusion is to old to upgrade. If I buy the new version can I transfer my exisiting set up?

[glove39]

So I just upgraded my Mac to El Captian & annoyingly my version of VMware fusion (5.0.3) is no longer supported & won't open.

Even more annoyingly VMware fusion only offer upgrades to the new version to those using version 6 or later.

Anyway, big question if I buy the new version is there a way I can still access my existing setup?

Would love it if someone could let me know. I'm self employed & I've got software on there that's vital for work 😕

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Welcome to the VMware communities forum.

There's no problem with Fusion 8 recognizing your Fusion 5 (or even older) virtual machines, it will just pick up where you have left off.

There are a few edge cases, like that officially you should have had your VMs shut down and not suspended and preferably without snapshots before upgrading to a newer version of Fusion. However in practice I have not seen real issues with that either.

Note that it is good practice to backup your virtual machines before going any further. Do that by copying them to an external disk (do not depend on time machine for Virtual Machine backups) and then disconnect that disk.

You can start by using the 30 day trial period on Fusion 8, just download from here:

Try VMware Fusion or Fusion Pro. Run Windows on a Mac without rebooting.

Once it works as you want, you only have to assign the license to Fusion to change it into the fully licensed version.

Hope this helps,

--
Wil

[glove39]

Hi Wila,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Didn't expect a reply so soon!

Delighted to say all's good again now at my end, downloaded the trial and hooray I've got my set up back.

Many, many thanks.

Best,

Graham :smileygrin: