The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide

The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide

Using inspiration from (and with apologies to) David Pogue's 'Missing Manual" series, I humbly present:

The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide
Version 25, 2024-02-24

The manual that VMware didn't publish and the one that you will need...

Important: This version of the Companion Guide is to be used with Fusion 13.5.

Changes in Version 25

General:

  • Update to the issues with VMs on Sonoma powering off when VoiceOver or Full Keyboard Access is enabled. Short version: It's an Apple issue.
  • Update to the workaround to import Parallels VMs into Fusion on Apple Silicon.
  • Removal of the recommendation to use the free version of ESXi to run VMs on Intel PC or server hardware as an alternative to Fusion on Intel Macs. VMware has discontinued the free ESXi hypervisor.

CentOS 9/RHEL 9:

  • Addition of warnings to select 4KB kernels during installation.

OpenSUSE:

  • Removal of information for Leap 15.4 as it's considered EOL.

Ubuntu:

  • Fixed typos in commands to add the Ubuntu App Center to Ubuntu 23.10.

------

The Companion Guide contains tips and techniques that were provided through the experiences of the broader Fusion community while running the Tech Preview releases on Apple Silicon Macs. It can save you searching the forum for frequently encountered issues.

The Companion Guide may answer many questions that aren't covered by reading the VMware Fusion documentation. Take a look at it before you start creating VMs - you might find something that will make your life easier. If you have a question that you're thinking about posting in the forum, check out the Companion first - it may already contain an answer to your question.

Of particular interest to Windows users is the section on Windows 11 on ARM. This section is chock full of information, procedures, and screen shots that should help you be successful in the installation of Windows 11 on Fusion 13..5

For you Linux users, you haven't been left out. There is plenty of content to help you as well, especially if you are an Ubuntu or Fedora user.

This document will be updated as the community experience with Fusion 13.5 grows and is discussed in the forums.

Enjoy and please post any comments or questions about the Companion to the Fusion forums.

NOTE: Please stay on topic if replying to this document thread. Post issues here that are related to the content of the Guide (e.g. errors, typos, clarifications, suggestions, things that don't work as noted in the Guide). Other issues with Fusion or your VM (e.g. VM doesn't work/won't boot/can't install/crashes/behaves strangely after upgrade), should be posted to the VMware Fusion Community forum https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion/ct-p/3005-home.

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FYI - the kinetic links don't work...typical ubuntu.  The new one is 'lunar'.

@ColoradoMarmot Thanks for the heads-up. I'll adjust the links, re-verify, and publish a new version on 12-Dec.

Looks also like 22.10 Desktop is no longer available since they've started work on 23.04 Lunar Lobster.

VMware owes you at least $2,500 compensation for your time & trouble producing this document.

The fact that I had to spend 20 minutes googling & digging through forum posts just to get a coherent understanding of the current structure & limitations of Fusion 13 for M1/M2 series Macs reflects poorly on VMware as a company. 

 

Thank YOU (OP, author of the document) for your time and trouble taken to write & share this doc.

Shame on you VMWARE, Parallels makes this so much easier even my Grandma could do it!

I can't believe that the Windows 11 specific feature is even a selling point for Fusion Pro 13.

This PDF was a HUGE help!!!  Follow the steps folks, dont jump ahead.  And yes it is normal for the ISO to take a long time lol.

I also appreciate the work that went into producing this document. Thank you.

Are there an official roadmap about the development of WMware Tools for enable the Copy/paste and shared file between macOS and Windows11 ARM ?

No. 

This is the BEST doc I ever seen on this topic.

It helped me to do a working install and to overcome the failure of VMware tools to be installed by itself.

Shame on you VMware !!!!

@Radar69 In fairness, VMware does describe how to install VMware Tools in Windows 11 ARM in the product documentation. They note that it does not install automatically like it does in Intel Windows.

Should VMware have published something like this? The answer is obviously "yes". But the community can react and tailor any responses to the needs of the community (such as more detailed walk-throughs) faster than VMware can. 

I do fault the VMware Community boards for not having "sticky topics" like other boards I've seen. That would provide an opportunity to put the Companion Guide "front and center" so that it could be more easily found and help more people.

Thank you for this REALLY useful guide. You may add some information (testet openSUSE Leap 15.4, macOS 13.2 and VMware Fusion Player 13.0.0):
- You need to connect a virtual CD/DVD-ROM and mount the appropriate image in the "Virtual machine" menu (not in Settings) if you encounter this error:

>>>Start PXE over IPv4.

It took me a while to figure that out...

- You can use the "Updated Offline Image" (I used openSUSE-Leap-15.4-CR-DVD-aarch64-Build31.98-Media.iso). This save some time for the required kernel update

@WillersU thanks for the comments.

Adding the ISO to the CD either in settings or the Virtual machine menu will work. You do have to make sure the virtual CD is set to connect to the VM if you do it through settings before booting the VM. I’ve forgotten that one a few times.  

The idea to use the updated Leap image is a good one.. I’ll make a note of that in the next revision to the guide (coming soon!). 

Got to step 10 and totally lost as to what to do. It says...

Extract the zip file obtained from step 8 and change the working directory to the
folder that was created during the unzip process

So I've got Terminal open. I've got a folder on my desktop that has the zip file and in that folder I double clicked the zip folder and now have a folder called 22000 and within that many files and a sub-folder called files. 

I'm not tracking with with what I need to do to change the working directory and how that then works to create the ISO file. 

Anyone have more detailed instruction on what this step entails? For non-techie people, this really should be a YouTube video so I can see what the heck is actually being asked to do here. Sigh.

You use the “cd” command to change the working directory when you are in the shell that’s open in the Terminal window. A web search for “unix change working directory” will give you more information on thie “cd” command and how to use it  

Opening the Terminal places you into a shell (that’s the equivalent of the Windows command prompt or Powershell) whose working directory is your account’s home folder. Your Desktop is a sub folder of your account’s home folder, (In Unix-like operating systems, folder and directory are synonymous). 

Let’s take an example. If you have a folder called “22000-something” on your Desktop, the following commands will change your working directory in the shell to this folder. :

cd Desktop
cd 22000-something

Or, the following single command will do the same thing starting in the same place

cd Desktop/22000-something

Videos are nice, but nothing takes the place of a well written manual. It’s easy to go back in a manual and use it as a reference. It’s not nowhere as easy to do that with a video - not unless you are taking copious notes as the video is playing. 

 

Hello.

At step 10, page 34....I get an error at the command prompt --

"Current directory contains spaces in its path.
Please move or rename the directory to one not containing spaces."

Can you help? Thanks.

 

There are underscores in the file name, not spaces. It reads

.\uup_download_windows.cmd

I'll see if I can make that a little more clear in the next update.

No - I figured out the issue - the directory I was using had a space in it (/Rogue Monk/). When I moved it all to the root directory, it worked (or is currently working).

Thanks.

If you ever come across a directory with a space in it again and you need to work with the CLI/shell, you can do one of two things:

enclose the file path with the spaces in double quotes like "/Rogue Monk"

or

escape the space with the backslash character: /Rogue\ Monk

FANTASTIC!

I had given up a while ago because I could not find the ISO for Windows and didn't manage to convert the files from UUP dump, I hesitated between Windows 10 and the newly released 11 too... too hard for a simple biologist.

The only problems I had:

- several times the ISO file was not found and I was stuck with >>>Start PXE over IPv4. as mentionned above. However in the settings of the VM, the CD was pointing to the ISO by default it seemed. You really have to click very fast and press a key very fast!

- very important not to forget to change the settings for Windows if you are using an AZERTY keyboard!!!

- the usual shortcut for the antislash on a MacBook AZERTY keyboard did not work in the command line promt, and of course it was not possible to copy-paste. I found out somewhere that the combination ctrl + option + 8 worked.

Thank you again for this very detailed, efficient andwell-written guide, that can be used even by someone with low technical abilities!


- several times the ISO file was not found and I was stuck with >>>Start PXE over IPv4. as mentionned above. However in the settings of the VM, the CD was pointing to the ISO by default it seemed. You really have to click very fast and press a key very fast!

When initially creating the VM, the VM's boot firmware is set to boot from CD/DVD first, then the hard drive, then the network (PXE). If you've set the CD/DVD drive to the Windows installer ISO (and made sure the drive is connected to the VM). the firmware will find the bootable media in the CD drive and boot from it first. Windows Setup will change the firmware's boot order to hard drive first, then CD/DVD after it completes the first phase of the installation and before the first reboot.

At the point of the request "Press any key...", the VM has has booted from the Microsoft installer ISO that's configured to the VM's CD/DVD drive. It's the Microsoft installer that's asking for the key press, not Fusion. Microsoft doesn't give you a lot of time to perform the task.

Thank you again for this very detailed, efficient and well-written guide, that can be used even by someone with low technical abilities!

You are welcome. Glad it could help you!

you can think of writing a workaround on how to export-import a VM. Basically you clone an existing VM, compact the files it creates into a zipper file. The pc that has to import just unzips the files and from vmware fusion do File --> Open and select the file that you just unzipped.

Thank you for this guide!

One suggestion: In the section about converting the Insider Preview VHDX file, you do not need any third party utilities. VMWare Fusion has one included in its app bundle. You can just run the following and it will convert it to a vmdk file:

/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -r ~/Downloads/Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_25276.VHDX -t 0 ~/Downloads/Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_25276.vmdk

 

@cpir that's a good find. The use of that built-in utility hadn't come up during the tech preview phase. I'll give it a whirl and if it passes, I'll include it in the next version of the Guide.

I'll also make sure you're credited for the suggestion.

wow - wonder why that isn't in their official documentation.

I'm following this guide to try and get Windows ARM running on a M1 Mac,

I've now tried it three times and each time I get this error right at the end after running

./uup_download_macos.sh

Status Legend:

(OK):download completed.

UUP Converter v0.7.2

Note: This script does not and cannot support the integration of updates.

Use the Windows version of the converter to integrate updates.

CAB -> ESD: Microsoft-Windows-MediaPlayer-Package-arm64

Failed to extract Microsoft-Windows-MediaPlayer-Package-arm64.cab

@kitenski

I had the same issue and I re-read the instructions:

Screen Shot 2023-02-16 at 10.58.02 AM.png

I think the only way to get it to work correctly is on a Windows system.

@kitenski I would be very interested to know what build from uupdump you tried to use. It is preferable to create the ISO from uupdump on Windows, but with care it is possible on macOS using the instructions in the Companion Guide. I've done it several times before, but I would like to check my work to see if something has changed.

As a test, I just created an ISO using the instructions for building a 21H2 Retail ISO (22000.978) from uupdump.net that are found in the Companion guide. I selected the English (United States) language, and included both Windows Home and Pro.  I did not select the "Include Updates" option as recommended in the Guide.

I do not see the "Failed to extract" error. 

I'm going to run a couple of other tests.

 

That's the key - you have to use the older build without updates.  Then update via windowsupdate after buildling the VM.

I do confirm that it worked for me, all done on a Mac M1 with Ventura 13.1. I followed exactly what the guide advised: I downloaded the build 21H2 from uupdump without updates, I installed all the utilities with brew and converted to ISO (the first run gave a checksum error but the second was fine). There was a little difference with what is in the guide: I had a choice between Windows pro and something called "core" if I remember well, not "home", and I choosed this one.

I tried the VMware tools installation step 12.4.4.16 in the guide but apparently it failed, probably because VMware tools does not work there according to experts. Now I'm trying to establish an easy-to-use connexion between the Mac and Windows to transfer data, something without a storage place on a server. I try to follow the suggestions in the guide but as I'm not at all familiar with the way Windows allows connexion to users and so on it's not straightforward. The best is probably to ask somebody who knows about networks on Windows.

@Technogeezer I used 22000.978 as per the instructions, I didn't select updates and chose Home and Pro version. The only difference to your test is that the language was UK English.

The zip file downloaded was 22000.978_arm64_en-gb_multi_a328eaaa_convert.zip

 




 

 

Just tried it again with US and had the same error! 

 

Status Legend:

(OK):download completed.

 

UUP Converter v0.7.2

Note: This script does not and cannot support the integration of updates.

Use the Windows version of the converter to integrate updates.

 

CAB -> ESD: Microsoft-Windows-LanguageFeatures-Speech-en-us-Package- arm64

Failed to extract Microsoft-Windows-LanguageFeatures-Speech-en-us-Package-arm64.cab

kitenski_0-1676628713114.png

 

@kitenski 

The one that worked for me was the same as your us version:

22000.978_arm64_en-us_multi_a328eaaa_convert

@kitenski 

I just downloaded the en-gb language build scripts 22000.978_arm64_en-gb_multi_a328eaaa_convert.zip, extracted them and ran the script. It built without seeing that error message.

There isn't much in the scripts as released to help you figure out what's exactly wrong. I'm trying to find a way to determine what the conversion is complaining about.

 

 

 

I think I've found a way to get some additional information on why the error is occurring.

Run the uup_download_macos.sh script once, allowing it to download the component files from Microsoft. It will fail but leave the files that it downloaded in a sub-folder called UUPs.

You'll also find a sub-folder named "files". Within that folder is a script called "convert.sh". Open that with your favorite editor.

On line 426 of the file, it reads:

 cabextract -d "$extractDir" "$file" >/dev/null 2>/dev/null

Change that to read:

 cabextract -d "$extractDir" "$file" >>cabextract.out 2>>cabextract.err

Save and close the file.

Make sure your working directory is the one that contains the uup_download_macos.sh script, and run following command to restart the conversion of the downloaded files:

files/convert.sh

When the process fails again, you'll find two files cabextract.out and cabextract.err. The cabextract.err file may give a clue as to why the process is failing.

@kitenski I think I've found what the issue is. See my reply to this thread in the VMware Fusion Discussions area of the forums:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Discussions/where-to-download-Windows-that-works-wit...

I'll be uploading a new version of the Companion Guide shortly that will include the workaround I posted in that thread.

Thanks for reporting this.

@Technogeezer thanks for following up, I ended up using a Windows machine to download yesterday so am up and running with Fusion on my M1 Mac.

Thanks for making this guide, it was very helpful!

Just a quick correction note though: In Appendix D of the PDF for Installing cabextract 1.9.1, in step 6, the 2 dashes before both instances of `prefix=/opt` are encoded as en dashes instead of normal hyphen dashes. This may be the result of some typesetting software trying to intelligently convert your dashes automatically to be more typographically correct. Copy-pasting those Terminal commands with the incorrect dashes results in errors. You should probably update the PDF so those dashes are proper hyphen dashes.

Thanks again!

@nicksherman thanks for the catch. I thought I'd gotten all of them but evidently missed one. Autocorrect and "smart" replacements strikes again. I'll update that immediately.

Trying this for the first time. Long VMWare Fusion user since 3.0.

MacBook Pro Running VMWare Fusion 12.2.1 running Windows 10 Pro 22H2.

Followed the instructions in "Building Windows for ARM 22H2 ISOs on Windows".

On step 5 I unchecked "Include Updates" per a comment above. 

Download, then move zip file to the Windows 10 desktop and run the script on step 10 to start the creation process.

In the Command window it opens am I supposed to see about 1/4 of the Green notices as red "[Error] checksum error detected"?

Tried to edit my comment above but it will not let me. 

Any input or comment from you all or VMWare on the Parallels/Microsoft announcement five days ago that Parallels Desktop 18 has Microsoft's blessing to sell and install Windows 11 on M1 and M2 based Macs?

VMware's response can be found in a blog post: https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2023/02/microsoft-now-officially-supports-windows-on-mac-compute...

We are waiting to see how quickly VMware can get the things done that they say they are moving "full speed ahead" on. 

I just wanted to let you know that I tried installing Parrot OS Architect 5.2 and it works (M1 MBA)

ps I'm on Monterey 12.6.3

I can't see my previous comment anymore... anyways I tried installing Parrot OS Architect 5.2 on m1 mba, OS version is Monterey 12.6.3 and it works

Bear with me Please I need to know can I use multiple displays with Fusion 13? I have a Mac desktop MI; I have 2 sonnet tech display links; I have 4 displays running Nicely plus the M1! Thank You Apple! I need to run TD Ameritrade, Ninja trader in Windows 11;  I want run Multiple Charts during live Trading on multiple displays WILL VM Ware do it? Or is Parallels the answer ? I am getting generic BS answers  from Both VM WARE and Parallels !!  Thank You 

@Tinker1954 Did you read the Companion Guide? There’s a pretty comprehensive list of the things that are NOT implemented in there, and multiple monitor support is one of them.

If you have a USB version of the Sonnet device, it *might* be able to be passed to the VM but you’ll have to see if Windows 11 ARM will recognize it and if it needs any drivers since. 

As to whether Fusion will deliver multiple monitor support in the future, VMware does not comment on the content of future releases. 

Yes I reviewed CG again just now. THANK YOU for your reply! I do have the USB version sonnet tech I see now that Win11 Arm may have an issue. I'll send that question (drivers) to sonnet tech support. They have always been helpful, I bought the units directly from them. So it appears System Ready isn't ready yet! Technogeezer THANK YOU   FJC

You should be able to determine from Device Manager in the Windows VM if the USB devices are recognized after "connecting" them through Fusion.

I went to Sonnet's site and found a driver download for the device. The release notes indicate that they have a drivers for

E. Supported Operating Systems
==============================
This release can be installed on the following operating systems:

- Windows 10 (S) v1607 and later (64-bit of Intel/AMD)
- Windows 10 & 11 (S) (64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon and Microsoft SQ2) via INF package only
- Windows 11 (64-bit of Intel/AMD)

The Snapdragon and SQ2 are ARM processors. This indicates to me that they have drivers for Windows 11 ARM. 

I would try this on an intel machine first.  I suspect that it simply won't work because of how Fusion does graphics (it handles it on the host, and doesn't support multiple host monitors, let alone a hack inside a guest).

One workaround would be to run multiple guests, and put one window on each of the screens running on the hots.

Thanks for the instructions. I was able to create the ISO and created a VM with 4 cores, 12GB ram, 80gig, using a MacStudio (base model) host. Once I get passed the section to "Activate Windows", I get message saying that "This PC can't run Windows 11" See attached. I've rebooted multiple times, I've skipped the product key, I've entered a product key, Ive selected the "Home" and "Pro" edition. Keep getting the same message. Any body have this issue?

Screenshot 2023-03-14 at 2.18.58 PM.png

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