The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon

Companion Guide
The manual that VMware didn’t publish
and the one that you will need.

Paul Rockwell (@Technogeezer), editor

Revision 31
The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide
Revision 31 - Published 2025-01-18
Copyright ©2024-2025 by Paul Rockwell.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
International (CC-BY-SA) license.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

This work is offered as-is and as-available, with no representations or warranties of any
kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or other. This includes without limitation
warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or the presence or
absence of errors, whether not known or discoverable.

This document was produced on a Mac and set with KOMA - Script and LATEX.

ii
VMware Fusion, VMware Fusion Pro, VMware Tools, and VMware Workstation are
trademarks of Broadcom.
Apple, Mac, Macintosh, and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S.
and other countries or regions.
iCloud and iCloud Drive are registered service marks of Apple Inc.
Microsoft, OneDrive, PowerShell, and Windows are trademarks of the Microsoft group of
companies.
Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
SUSE, the SUSE logo, openSUSE and the openSUSE logo are registered trademarks of
SUSE and SUSE Linux is a trademark of SUSE.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, CentOS and Fedora are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries.
Kali Linux™ is a trademark of OffSec.
Ubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd.
OpenGL® and the oval logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Hewlett Packard
Enterprise in the United States and/or other countries worldwide.
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are the property of their
respective owners.

iii
Contents

About this guide ix

Document conventions xi

Changes from Revision 30 xiii

1. Running Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs 1

1.1. Where can I download VMware Fusion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. Do I need a license for Fusion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3. What Fusion version should I run? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.4. Where can I find Fusion documentation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4.1. Using VMware Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4.2. Release notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4.3. Additional important documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5. What is the difference between Fusion on Intel and Apple Silicon? . . . 3
1.6. What guest operating systems can be used with Fusion? . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6.1. Officially supported guest operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6.2. Other guest operating systems known to work . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6.3. Guest operating systems that won’t work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.7. Obtaining installation media for guest operating systems . . . . . . . . 6
1.7.1. For Windows 11 ARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.7.2. For all other operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.8. 3D graphics acceleration support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.8.1. Linux guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.8.2. Windows guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.9. Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.10. Reporting problems with Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.11. Fusion on macOS best practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.11.1. Run your VMs on local APFS or HFS+ volumes . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.11.2. Don’t sync your VMs to the cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.11.3. Do not disable macOS security features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.11.4. Remember passwords in the keychain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.12. Known Fusion issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.12.1. Fusion virtual USB controller vulnerabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.12.2. Fusion code execution vulnerabiilty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.12.3. Enabling VoiceOver on Sonoma causes VM crash at power-up . . 13
1.12.4. No import of Parallels virtual machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

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 1.12.5. Some Linux installers do not boot on Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.12.6. “Install VMware Tools” is greyed out for Linux VMs . . . . . . . . 16
1.12.7. “Start PXE over IPv4” message displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.12.8. Unable to change the display resolution of a Linux VM . . . . . . 17
1.12.9. Shared folders do not automatically mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.12.10. Erratic behavior when multiple hypervisors are in use . . . . . . . 18
1.12.11. Host printers are not shared with the VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.12.12. Sound issues in Linux virtual machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.12.13. Copy/Paste/Drag/Drop on Linux VMs isn’t working . . . . . . . . . 19
1.12.14. GNOME 46 display issues with 3D enabled . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.12.15. Blank screen on system console after boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2. Arch Linux 22
2.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3. CentOS 23
3.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2. Fusion features for CentOS guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3. Creating a Centos 9 Stream VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4. Use the “4k” kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4. Debian 25
4.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2. Fusion features for Debian guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3. Creating a Debian VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4. Changing screen resolution on Debian 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.5. open-vm-tools for Debian 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.6. Upgrading Debian 11 to Debian 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5. EVE-NG and GNS3 29

5.1. GNS3 and EVE-NG VMs don’t work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2. Workarounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2.1. GNS3 workarounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2.2. EVE-NG workarounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

6. Fedora 31
6.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.2. Fusion features for Fedora guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.3. Creating a Fedora VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.4. Known issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.4.1. Workstation Live ISOs for aarch64 aren’t found . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.4.2. Mesa 24.3.2 issues with GNOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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7. Gentoo 36
7.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

8. Kali Linux 37
8.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
8.2. Fusion features for Kali Linux guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
8.3. Creating a Kali Linux VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
8.4. Known Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
8.4.1. Installation fails at “Select and install software” . . . . . . . . . . 38
8.4.2. Screen resolution fails to change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

9. macOS 39
9.1. Fusion on Apple Silicon does not run macOS VMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.2. Workarounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.2.1. For macOS 10.15 Catalina and earlier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.2.2. For macOS 11 Big Sur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
9.2.3. For macOS 12 Monterey and later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

10. openSUSE Leap 41

10.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
10.2. Fusion features for Leap guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
10.3. Creating a Leap VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

11. openSUSE Tumbleweed 42

11.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
11.2. Fusion features for Tumbleweed guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
11.3. Creating a Tumbleweed VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
11.4. Known issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
11.4.1. GNOME applications fail to display correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

12. Oracle Linux 44

12.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
12.2. Fusion features for Oracle Linux guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
12.3. Creating an Oracle Linux VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

13. Parrot OS 46
13.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
13.2. Fusion features for Parrot OS guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
13.3. Creating a Parrot OS VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
13.4. Known Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
13.4.1. Screen resolution fails to change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

14. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 49

14.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

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 14.2. Fusion features for RHEL guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
14.3. Creating a RHEL 9 VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
14.4. Use the “4k” kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
14.5. Known Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
14.5.1. RHEL 9.0 installation issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
14.5.2. RHEL 8 and earlier do not work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

15. Ubuntu 52
15.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
15.2. Fusion features for Ubuntu guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
15.3. Creating an Ubuntu VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
15.4. Where’s Ubuntu Desktop for ARM? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
15.5. Installing 20.04.5 LTS from ISO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
15.6. Which ISO for Ubuntu 22.04? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
15.7. Don’t use the arm64+largemem ISOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
15.8. How to convert Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
15.9. Links to Ubuntu arm64 downloads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
15.10. Change delay for display of GRUB boot loader menu . . . . . . . . . . . 57

16. Windows 11 ARM 59

16.1. General notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
16.2. Fusion features for Windows 11 ARM guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
16.3. VMware Tools versions for Windows 11 ARM VMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
16.4. 3D acceleration for Windows ARM VMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
16.5. Windows 11 ARM licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
16.6. Downloading Windows 11 ARM ISO installation media . . . . . . . . . . 62
16.7. Creating the Windows ISO from the command line . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
16.8. Installing Windows 11 from ISO using “Get Windows from Microsoft” . 66
16.9. Installing Windows 11 from ISOs not created by Fusion . . . . . . . . . 67
16.10. Windows 11 post-installation tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
16.11. Installing VMware Tools on Windows 11 ARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
16.12. Running Windows Insider Preview builds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
16.13. Known issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
16.13.1. “Get Windows from Microsoft” fails to create ISO . . . . . . . . . . 74
16.13.2. Windows 11 24H2 ISO is detected as Windows Server 2025. . . . 74
16.13.3. Windows 11 ARM 24H2 ISO boots, but screen goes blank . . . . . 74
16.13.4. Windows ISO won’t boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
16.13.5. C: drive size doesn’t change when expanding the virtual disk . . . 76
16.13.6. “The data is invalid” message when enabling BitLocker . . . . . . 77
16.13.7. “PC does not meet minimum requirements” when enrolling for
Windows Insider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
16.13.8. Microsoft Store issues in a new VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
16.13.9. No folder sharing option in VM Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

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 16.13.10. WSL2/Hyper-V/etc. do not work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
16.13.11. Display issues after upgrading VM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
16.13.12. Devices with missing drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
16.13.13. VM hangs or BSOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
16.13.14. Poor application graphics performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

A. Glossary 83

B. Windows 11 Installation Resources 88

Acknowledgements 89

viii
About this guide

Knowledge is good.
— inscription on the statue of Emil Faber, from the
film “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (1978)

The Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide (the “Companion Guide”) is
a collection of useful tips, techniques, and “gotchas” for building and running virtual
machines under Fusion 13 on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) Macs. Some of these tips
have been submitted by users on the Broadcom Fusion Community forums.
The Companion Guide is not a VMware official publication and is not endorsed by VMware
or Broadcom.
The Companion Guide is a PDF document and is designed to be viewed on a computer
or tablet with Adobe Reader or any other PDF viewer. The Companion Guide contains
clickable hyperlinks which will direct the reader to other parts of the Companion Guide or
to external web sites.
While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of content contained in the
Companion Guide, no guarantees or warranties of accuracy are offered by the editor. The
editor’s intent is to keep the Companion Guide as accurate as possible so that it is useful
to the broader Fusion user community. Any inaccuracies should be reported to the Fusion
forums, and they will be addressed in future versions of this document.

Use the latest version of the Companion Guide

The Companion Guide is frequently updated to reflect new releases of guest operating
systems and changes to Apple software. Please make sure you are using the latest version
of the Companion Guide so that you can take advantage of the most current information.
The latest version of the Companion Guide can always be found here on the Broadcom
Fusion Community. Versions posted elsewhere on the Internet may not be current.

The Companion Guide is a supplement to Fusion documentation

The Companion Guide is designed to supplement – not replace – the Fusion documentation
provided by VMware. Information found in the Fusion documentation will not be repeated

ix
in the Companion Guide. You will be referred to the Fusion documentation via hyperlinks
where appropriate.

Tip

Don’t know where the Fusion documentation is? See Section 1.4.1: Using VMware
Fusion.

The Companion Guide covers Fusion 13.5 and later for Apple Silicon Macs

The Companion Guide is written for Fusion 13.5 and later on Apple Silicon Macs. Users of
older versions of Fusion need to install or update to Fusion 13.5 before using this Guide.
The Companion Guide does not discuss running Fusion on Intel Macs.

“Some assembly is required” when using the Companion Guide

Some of the procedures in the Companion Guide can be categorized as “some assembly
required”. They require system administration – or other “command line” oriented –
operations to complete the tasks. The Companion Guide tries to walk you through the
procedures in as straightforward a manner as possible without the need to be an expert
programmer or system administrator to complete the tasks.
If you are unsure about how to perform these tasks, please post a question in the Broadcom
Fusion Community forum. You may also want to search the web for documentation and
tutorials on your operating system environment.

x
Document conventions

Any references to “Fusion” in this document refer to Fusion 13.5 or later running on Apple
Silicon Macs, unless otherwise noted.
All dates in the Companion Guide are in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD).
Hyperlinks
This document contains two types of hyperlinks. One which cross-references other sections
within the document, and another that references websites outside the document. Here’s
how you tell the two apart:

• Cross reference links to other sections or chapters within the Guide appear as follows:
This is a link to Section 1.4: Where can I find Fusion documentation?.
• Links to external web sites appear as follows: This is a link to the VMware
www.vmware.com website. The URL to the website can be found by hovering the
mouse over the blue hyperlink.

Commands you type into a computer

Command input to a command prompt or “shell” – macOS Terminal/zsh shell, Linux bash
shell, Windows cmd.exe or PowerShell – appears as follows:

Mac Terminal
% command arg1 arg2
% command2 arg1 arg2

Linux shell
$ command arg1 arg2
$ command2 arg1 arg2

_ Windows Command

C:> command arg1 arg2

C:> command2 arg1 arg2

When copy and pasting commands, do not include the $, %, #, or C:> shell prompts.

xi
A command line that’s too long to fit in a line of the display will be split using the UNIX
shell convention of a backslash (\) and return at the end of the line. The next line will be
considered as a continuation of the command.

Linux shell
$ command1 this command does not fit on one line because it is way way way \
way way way way way way way too long
$ command2 this one is much shorter

Copying the entire multi-line command (command1 in the example) including the back-
slash character and pasting the command in the shell will work as expected.
Output of commands or other text
Command output or text that a procedure asks to be included in files will appear as
follows:

output line 1
output line 2

Hints, notes, or warnings

Helpful hints or tips to make your life easier are shown as follows:

Tip

This is a helpful tip that can make your life easier.

Warnings about things that can get you into trouble are shown as follows:

Warning

This is a warning. You might want to think twice (or more) before doing this.

Notes or side comments about the topic being discussed are shown as follows:

This is a side comment

This is a comment on what’s being discussed in the main text.

xii
Changes from Revision 30

Updated content

• Updated several topics to include the availability of an official Windows 11 ARM

24H2 installation ISO from a Microsoft web site.
• Changed web links to VMware Fusion documentation due to changes in Broadcom’s
web site effective 2025-01-30.
• Removed topics specific to openSUSE Leap 15.5 as it has reached its end-of-life date.
openSUSE no longer recommends the use of Leap 15.5.
• Added a discussion on problems with Fedora 41 and Mesa 24.3.2 updates.

Cosmetic changes

• Some topics in Section 1: Running Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs have been re-ordered
and re-written to improve topic flow.

xiii
1. Running Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs

1.1. Where can I download VMware Fusion?

See the Broadcom KB article Download and license VMware Desktop Hypervisor (Fusion
Pro and Workstation Pro) for instructions on how to download Fusion.

1.2. Do I need a license for Fusion?

No. Fusion is available for free for Commercial, Educational, and Personal users – as
announced by Broadcom on 2024-11-11.
Fusion 13.5.2 through 13.6.1 will ask for a license key at installation time, but an option is
provided to to select free Personal use. You can select the Personal use option even if using
Fusion for Commercial or Educational purposes. You’ll be compliant with Broadcom’s new
licensing.
Starting with Fusion 13.6.2, Fusion will no longer ask for a license key at installation
time.

1.3. What Fusion version should I run?

For macOS 13 Ventura or macOS 14 Sonoma, Fusion 13.6.2 should be the version of choice.
It’s a free update from any Fusion 13 version and contains bug fixes and critical security
fixes.
For macOS 15 Sequoia, you must use Fusion 13.6.2. Fusion 13.6.x are the only versions
that are officially tested on macOS 15 Sequoia.

What about macOS 12 Monterey?

Fusion 13.5.2 is the last Fusion version that will run on macOS 12 Monterey.
Fusion 13.5.2 and macOS 12 Monterey are not receiving any more bug or security
fixes. If you’re concerned about security, you really should consider upgrading to
macOS 13 Ventura or later.

1
 Warning

What about Fusion 22H2 or 2023 Tech Previews?

These Fusion Tech Previews are obsolete, unsupported, and have been removed
from Broadcom’s web site. Don’t use them.

1.4. Where can I find Fusion documentation?

1.4.1. Using VMware Fusion

“Using VMware Fusion” is the official product documentation for Fusion. It can be found:

• Built into Fusion: Select Help VMware Fusion Help from the Fusion menu bar
• On the web: Using VMware Fusion (HTML)

1.4.2. Release notes

Broadcom provides release notes for each Fusion release in addition to the product
documentation. Release notes provide information about a specific release – such as
changes, bug fixes, and known issues – that may not be reflected in the documentation.
Release notes for Fusion can be found here on the Broadcom product documentation web
site. It is strongly recommended that you review release notes before attempting any
Fusion installation or upgrade.

1.4.3. Additional important documentation

Broadcom KB article 315602 Compatibility considerations for Arm guest operating systems
in Fusion VMs on Apple silicon contains important information about the virtual hardware
provided by Fusion for ARM virtual machines. This article describes in more detail:

• The generic requirements and limitations for all ARM guest operating systems.
• Detailed information on the virtual hardware devices for officially supported ARM
guest operating systems.
• Operating systems that are not supported by Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs. This
includes a statement that no x86 (Intel) operating systems and no macOS versions
are supported.

2
1.5. What is the difference between Fusion on Intel and Apple Silicon?

Most Fusion features behave similarly on Apple Silicon Macs and Intel Macs.
The major difference is that Fusion on Apple Silicon cannot run any Intel/AMD x86 or
x86_64 architecture operating systems.

Warning

Upgrading from an Intel Mac? Your old Fusion VMs can’t run on a new Apple
Silicon Mac.

There are other features found in Fusion on Intel Macs that do not work on Apple Silicon
Macs. They include:
• Virtual printer sharing (ThinPrint) of printers defined on the host Mac1 . See Sec-
tion 1.12.11: Host printers are not shared with the VM for a workaround.
• Virtual machine import/export using .ova or .ovf formatted files.
• Conversion of virtual machines from Parallels. See Section 1.12.4: No import of
Parallels virtual machines for a workaround.
• Nested virtualization2 .
• Sharing of Bluetooth devices between host and guest3 .
Also reference Broadcom KB article 315609 Features of Windows 11 VM on Mac with Intel
vs. Apple silicon. This article (which has been updated for Fusion 13.6) compares the
features available for Windows guests on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

1.6. What guest operating systems can be used with Fusion?

Any guest operating system that runs on Fusion on Apple Silicon must use the ARM
(aarch64 or arm64) processor architecture.

1.6.1. Officially supported guest operating systems

The list of guest operating systems officially supported by Fusion on Apple Silicon can be
found in the VMware Compatibility Guide. See Figure 1.1.

1
ThinPrint was removed in Fusion 13.5 for Intel Macs.
2
While Apple now supports nested virtualization for M3 (and later) Macs in macOS 15 Sequoia, Fusion does
not support it yet.
3
Bluetooth sharing was removed in Fusion 13.6 for Intel Macs.

3
 Figure 1.1: VMware Compatibility Guide

To filter the list to the operating systems supported with Fusion, select the following in
the “What are you looking for” section:
• “Product Release Version” of “Fusion 13.6”
• “OS Arch” of “arm(64bit)”
Click “Update and View Results” to display the supported guest operating systems

1.6.2. Other guest operating systems known to work

The officially supported guest operating systems are not the only ones that will run with
Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs. Here’s a list of arm64/aarch64 operating systems that the
community has found to work:
• AlmaLinux 9.1 and later
• CentOS 9 Stream
• Fedora 40 and later
• Debian 11.11 “Bullseye”, 12 “Bookworm”
• Kali Linux
• openSUSE Leap 15.6
• openSUSE Tumbleweed
• Oracle Linux 8.x (starting with 8.7), 9.x
• Parrot OS
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 and later
• Rocky Linux 9.1 and later
• Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS, 22.04.3 LTS, 24.04 LTS, 24.10

4
 • Windows 11 ARM 23H2, 24H2
Other arm64 Linux distributions that have ISO installation media with reasonably current
kernels (5.19 and later) and that support the virtual hardware described in Broadcom KB
article 315602 may work with Fusion. You are encouraged to try them and report your
experiences back to the broader Fusion community.

1.6.3. Guest operating systems that won’t work

The following won’t work in a Fusion VM:

• Operating systems requiring an Intel CPU

This includes but is not limited to all Windows Server versions, Windows 10 and
earlier, and Oracle Solaris.

Rosetta won’t make them work

While Rosetta 2 allows applications compiled for Intel Macs to run on Apple
Silicon CPUs, it does not allow virtualization applications such as Fusion or
Parallels to run Intel VMs. This is a documented Apple restriction.

Your options for these VMs include:

– Continuing to run VMs on an Intel Mac.
– Using an Intel/AMD PC to run Linux or Windows VMs with VMware Worksta-
tion.
– Converting your VM to run under an Intel emulator such as UTM. Be fore-
warned, though. You won’t be impressed with the performance.
– Rebuilding the VMs using ARM versions of the operating systems and transfer-
ring your data from the old VMs to the new one.
• macOS
Fusion does not support any version of macOS as a VM. See Section 9.1: Fusion on
Apple Silicon does not run macOS VMs for a more detailed discussion.
• Most pre-packaged virtual appliances
Most virtual appliances are built for Intel CPUs exclusively. Read the fine print for
CPU support. If it doesn’t explicitly specify that it supports an ARM processor (sorry,
but saying “a 64-bit cpu” isn’t enough), it probably won’t work.
Many virtual appliances are packaged as Open Virtualization Format (.ova or .ovf)
files. Fusion on Apple Silicon doesn’t support the import of .ova or .ovf formatted files.
You may be able to use unsupported mechanisms to extract these virtual appliances,

5
 but they almost certainly will not run under Fusion because they expect an Intel
CPU.
• 32–bit ARM operating systems
Operating systems built for 32–bit ARMv7 architectures will not run under Fusion.
Fusion requires 64-bit ARMv8 or later architecture operating systems.
• Older arm64 operating systems
Older versions of arm64 operating systems not explicitly supported by Fusion or
noted as working by the Fusion community may not work in a Fusion VM. Linux
distributions that have reached their end of support date and that contain kernels
older than 5.15 are particularly problematic.
These older arm64 operating system tend to contain bugs and other incompatibilities
that may render them unusable on Fusion.
• Operating systems for RaspberryPi and similar single board computers
Linux installers and disk images targeted for Raspberry Pi (and similar) arm64
single-board computers will not work on Fusion. Fusion does not provide virtual
hardware for the storage, GPU, and boot firmware present on these devices.

1.7. Obtaining installation media for guest operating systems

Fusion does not provide pre-built virtual machine images for any guest operating system.
You must download operating system installation media. Once you’ve downloaded the
installation media, follow the Fusion documentation and the advice in the Companion
Guide to create your VMs.

1.7.1. For Windows 11 ARM

See Section 16.6: Downloading Windows 11 ARM ISO installation media.

1.7.2. For all other operating systems

Download arm64/aarch64 ISO installation media from the distribution’s web site.

Warning

Make sure any installation media that you download are for arm64 or aarch64
processor architectures. ISOs for other processor architectures will not work.

6
1.8. 3D graphics acceleration support

1.8.1. Linux guests

Fusion supports OpenGL 4.3 APIs for 3D graphics acceleration with the Mesa 3-D libraries
on Linux VMs. Vulkan APIs are not currently supported.
3D acceleration for Linux VMs on Fusion requires:
• Virtual hardware version 20 or later.
• A 5.19 or later Linux kernel installed in the VM.
• Mesa 3-D libraries version 22.1.1 or later installed in the VM.
3D acceleration is known to work on the following Linux distributions:
• Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS (and later updates) using the HWE kernel
• Ubuntu 22.10 and later
• Fedora 37 and later (including Rawhide)
• Debian 12 “Bookworm”
• openSUSE Tumbleweed
• openSUSE Leap 15.6
• Kali Linux 2023.1 and later
3D acceleration will not work on the following Linux distributions:
• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (and all updates)
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (and all updates) when using the 5.15 standard kernel
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux – all versions and all downstream rebuilds such as Rocky
Linux and AlmaLinux
• Oracle Linux – all versions
• CentOS 9 Stream
• Debian 11 “Bullseye”
• openSUSE Leap 15.5 and earlier
As a best practice, disable 3D acceleration in the VM’s settings for Linux guests that do
not support 3D acceleration. There have been community reports of Fusion crashing early
in the boot process when 3D acceleration is enabled for distributions that do not meet the
system prerequisites.

1.8.2. Windows guests

See Section 16.4: 3D acceleration for Windows ARM VMs.

7
1.9. Getting help

If you need help, the first place to start is the Fusion documentation. Section 1.4: Where
can I find Fusion documentation? will help you find the documentation.
If you can’t find an answer in the documentation, take a look in the Broadcom Fusion
Community forum. Your question may have already been answered. If not, then the forum
is a good place to ask for help.

Tip

You will need a Broadcom Basic User Account to post content to any Broadcom
Community forum. See the Broadcom KB article Register for an account on the
Broadcom Support Portal and Communities for instructions on how to register for
an account.

About the Broadcom Fusion Community forum

The Broadcom Fusion Community forum is a user-to-user forum. Forum members

are users of Fusion just like you. Many knowledgeable people frequent the forum –
and are more than willing to help out.
Please remember that forum members respond to posts based on their available time
and expertise. There are no guarantees on when someone will reply or if anyone
knows an answer to your question. “Pinging” a post to try and solicit a response to
an unanswered question is generally considered to be bad forum etiquette because
of this.

Tip

To help other forum members to help you better, please provide as much information
as possible about what you are experiencing. That includes:
• the Mac hardware and macOS version that you’re using
• the Fusion version you’re running on
• the operating system (with version/build information) you’re running in the
VM
• a detailed description on what has happened (including how you got to the
point of failure)

8
1.10. Reporting problems with Fusion

Broadcom no longer offers a paid support option for any of the VMware Desktop Virtual-
ization products (Fusion or Workstation). That means there’s no way to directly contact
Broadcom’s technical support team to report bugs and open a support ticket.
Report any bugs that you find in Fusion to the Fusion Community forum. At a minimum,
attach a copy of the vmware.log file from the VM’s bundle folder ro your post. It’s also
recommended to collect a quick support bundle (from the Fusion menu bar, select Help
Collect Support Information Quick and attach the generated zip file to your forum post.

In some cases, community members may be able to suggest a solution or workaround to

any bug reports.
Broadcom employees may file an internal ticket for issues reported in the forums. Ask for
help in the forum if you find that a Broadcom employee hasn’t noted that they’ve created
a ticket for your issue.
Unfortunately the bug reporting process is a one-way street. Broadcom doesn’t usually
provide feedback on internal tickets once they’ve been created. Unfortunately, this makes
it difficult to determine when or if a bug will be fixed.

1.11. Fusion on macOS best practices

1.11.1. Run your VMs on local APFS or HFS+ volumes

Fusion VMs should be saved to and run from disk volumes formatted as macOS Extended
(HFS+) or Apple File System (APFS). You will have problems trying to run Fusion virtual
machines stored on file systems formatted as:
• NTFS (using third-party file systems such as Paragon NTFS)
• FAT (MS/DOS)
• ExFAT
These file systems either don’t provide the file system operations that Fusion needs, or
the file system drivers are problematic. The reported issues range from Fusion errors to
corrupted virtual machines to macOS crashes.
It’s also not recommended to run virtual machines from networked (NAS) storage. Aside
from potential performance issues, one network interruption on your Mac and *poof* you
may be faced with a virtual machine crash and a potentially corrupted virtual machine.
Just because you can’t run a VM on NTFS, FAT, ExFAT, or networked file systems doesn’t
mean you can’t use them. All available read-write file system types on the Mac can be
used to transport VMs to/from another system or to provide a backup copy of your VM.

9
 Warning

FAT file systems have a maximum file size of 4 GB. If your VM has virtual disk
pieces of more than 4 GB you might need to get creative when transporting these
VMs. For example, instead of a FAT formatted disk, use a disk formatted as ExFAT
or HFS+ – assuming that your destination system supports the file system format.
Or create a segmented archive of the VM that breaks up the archive into pieces of
no more than 4 GB.

1.11.2. Don’t sync your VMs to the cloud

Avoid storing and running VMs in folders that are configured to sync to cloud storage.
This includes but is not limited to:
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Dropbox
• iCloud Drive
• Google Drive
Running VMs from folders that use cloud storage may result in errors or corrupted virtual
machines – especially if the cloud provider decides to sync your virtual machine to the
cloud while you are using it. Most of these cloud storage solutions use Apple’s File Provider
services. Some file system operations that Fusion wants to use may not work as expected,
resulting in errors. You may also be waiting for the cloud to restore a multi-gigabyte file
over the network that has been evicted from your disk without Fusion’s knowledge.

Warning

You may be syncing your Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud and not realizing
it.
Check the iCloud Drive settings in the macOS System Settings/Preferences. If
iCloud Drive is enabled, check to see if the “Desktop & Documents Folders” option
is enabled. If it is, either store your VMs in a folder other than the Desktop and
Documents folders (or any of their subfolders) or disable Desktop and Documents
folder syncing.

1.11.3. Do not disable macOS security features

You may find web sites or blog posts that recommend turning off System Integrity Protec-
tion (SIP) and Apple Mobile File Integrity (AMFI) to “solve problems” with macOS.
This isn’t a good idea – from both a security and Fusion perspective.

10
AMFI and SIP are two macOS security features that protect the system against malware.
They are both enabled by default and Apple does not recommend turning them off. If you
have a “problem” that is “fixed” when you turn these off you haven’t “fixed” anything. You
still have a problem. Turn AMFI and SIP back on. Then find and fix your real problem.
There have been reports of problems with Fusion when AMFI or SIP are disabled. Turning
SIP and AMFI on again fixed the issues.
VMware doesn’t test, support, or respond to problems found with Fusion when SIP or
AMFI been turned off.

1.11.4. Remember passwords in the keychain

When encrypting a VM, Fusion will ask if you want to save the password to the user’s
keychain. It’s not a bad idea to accept the offer.
If Fusion saves the password of an encrypted VM, it will automatically unlock the VM
when the VM is powered up or if the VM’s Settings are opened.
However, there are cases where the VM will not be automatically unlocked for you. You
will need to type in the VM’s password:

• if the VM is moved to another folder on the same machine with the Finder. The
user’s keychain entry is tied to the original location of the VM and the entry is not
automatically updated to reflect the new location.
• if the VM is being shared among users on the Mac. Each user will need to know the
password to unlock the VM since Keychains are not shared among users. Users can
save the VM’s password in their own keychain once they’ve unlocked the VM.
• if the VM is moved to another system. The user’s keychain entry does not move with
the VM to the new system.
• when removing encryption from an encrypted VM.

If you need to type in the password and you’ve forgotten it, don’t worry – if you told Fusion
to save the password for you. The saved password can be retrieved from the user’s login
keychain using the Keychain Access utility.

11
 You won’t find VM passwords in the new Passwords utility

Fusion saves encrypted virtual machine passwords in the user’s login keychain. The
new Passwords utility found in macOS Sequoia only manages the Data Protection
keychain – otherwise known as “Local Items” or “iCloud Keychain”. It does not
display or manage items stored in the user’s login keychain.
Use the Keychain Access utility to find a saved VM password – even on Sequoia.

Sequoia moved Keychain Access

macOS Sequoia moved Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities to

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications.
You can always use Spotlight to find and open Keychain Access should you forget
where it is.

You will need to worry, however, if you have forgotten the password and you didn’t choose
to have Fusion save it. VMware has no ability to recover a lost password for an encrypted
VM.
There’s not really much of a down side to saving a VM’s password to the keychain. In
practice, the keychain is very reliable. Keychains are also captured by a Time Machine
backup, so they’re protected from loss. If you’re concerned about the rare possibility
of a keychain issue, consider using an additional secure method of recording the VM’s
password (for example, another password manager or a really good memory).

1.12. Known Fusion issues

1.12.1. Fusion virtual USB controller vulnerabilities

On 2024-03-04, VMware released security advisory VMSA-2024-0006.1. This advisory

describes multiple vulnerabilities in the virtual UHCI USB controller. The most severe of
these vulnerabilities is rated as “Critical”. VMware has reported that these issues exist in
Fusion 13.x, but has not stated if they are present in earlier Fusion releases. It should be
assumed that older releases contain these vulnerabilities.
To remediate these issues, upgrade to Fusion 13.5.1 or later. There does not appear to be a
plan to provide these fixes to older Fusion releases.

12
1.12.2. Fusion code execution vulnerabiilty

On 2024-09-03, VMware released security advisory VMSA-2024-0018. This advisory

describes a code execution vulnerability for Fusion 13 versions before 13.6 which would
allow a malicious actor with standard user privileges to execute code in the context of the
Fusion application. The issue has been evaluated to be in the “Important” severity range
with a CVSSv3 base score if 8.8.
To remediate this issue, upgrade to Fusion 13.6. There does not appear to be a plan to
provide this fix to older Fusion releases.

1.12.3. Enabling VoiceOver on Sonoma causes VM crash at power-up

When VoiceOver or Full Keyboard Access are enabled on macOS Sonoma versions prior to
14.4, virtual machines may crash immediately after power-up. This issue does not appear
when running Fusion on Ventura or Monterey hosts.
Updating to macOS Sonoma 14.4 or later fixes this issue.

1.12.4. No import of Parallels virtual machines

Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs does not directly support the importing of virtual machines
from Parallels. @neanti and others have provided the following workaround:

Warning

This workaround relies on undocumented and unsupported behavior of Fusion.

1 If you have a Parallels Windows 11 VM and are using a Microsoft Account to sign
into Windows, create a local Windows account with administrative privileges in your
Parallels VM before starting the conversion.

Warning

Parallels VMs that do not have a local Windows account with administrative
privileges will be unusable after conversion. You won’t be able to log into the
VM.

2 Remove Parallels tools from the Parallels VM before starting the conversion.
3 Shut down the Parallels VM and make a copy of it to another folder or disk.

13
 4 Locate the .pvm file for the Parallels VM in the Finder and double click on it. Fusion
will open, create a new virtual machine, and convert the Parallels disk to VMware
vmdk format.

Don’t try to power on this VM

This part of the conversion process thinks it’s dealing with a Parallels VM on
an Intel Mac. It creates a VM configured for Intel CPUs – which won’t power
on under Fusion on an Apple Silicon Mac. If you try, it will fail and you’ll be
greeted with an error message stating that the VM requires an Intel CPU
architecture.
The virtual disks, though, are converted and you’ll need them for the next
steps.

5 Create another new VM by clicking File New. . . in the Fusion GUI menu bar.
6 In “Select the Installation Method”, select “Create a custom virtual machine”.
7 In “Choose Operating System”, select a guest operating system type similar to the one
installed in the Parallels VM. For example, if you have a Windows VM in Parallels,
select “Windows 11 64-bit Arm”.
8 In “Choose Firmware Type”, you can leave “UEFI Secure Boot” box unchecked.
9 If you are presented with “Choose Encryption” and are using a Windows VM, choose
“Only the files needed to support a TPM are encrypted”. Provide the password for
your new VM as requested. It’s recommended to select “Remember password and
store it in the Mac’s keychain”,
Encrypting Linux virtual machines is optional.
10 In “Choose a virtual disk”, select “Use an existing virtual disk”. and click on Choose
virtual disk. . . . A file browser window will open. Use this window to navigate into
the converted VM bundle created in step 1 – yes, it will let you drill into the bundle
like it’s a normal folder. Select the .vmdk file that isn’t grayed out.
11 Before hitting Choose, select “Make a separate copy of the virtual disk”. This will
make a copy of the converted virtual disk for the new virtual machine, leaving the
original untouched. Now click Choose.
12 In the Finish dialog, you can click Customize Settings or Finish. Finish will power
on the VM, Customize Settings gives you a chance to change things like memory and
CPUs before powering on the VM.
Either way, you’ll be presented with a dialog to save the new VM. Once. you provide
the name and location for the new VM and click Done the data will be copied from
the old VM.

14
Once you’ve verified that the new VM is running, you can delete the Parallels VM and the
VM created in step 1 to save disk space.
Notes for converted Windows VMs
Newly converted Windows VMs will not have networking enabled. To enable networking,
sign into the VM with a local account that has administrative privileges and install
VMware Tools.

Warning

Users that sign into Windows with a Microsoft Account will be unable to sign into
the VM (and reset Windows Hello PINs) until this is done.

Windows may need to be re-activated due to changes in the virtual machine hardware.
Notes for converted Linux VMs
Linux VMs will likely need additional changes in order to boot on Fusion. Parallels virtual
hardware for Linux VMs is different than the virtual hardware provided by Fusion. These
differences may prevent the converted VM from booting.
If the Linux VM fails to boot, configure the VM’s virtual CD/DVD drive with the installer
ISO for the distribution running in the VM. Then boot the VM from the CD/DVD drive.
You should then be able to repair any issues preventing the VM from booting (usually
involving the GRUB boot loader and the /etc/fstab file within the VM) by using a
live environment or rescue mode. The options available will depend on what the Linux
distribution provides.
As an example of how to repair a Linux system that fails to boot, see the openSUSE forum
post “Repair a broken UEFI/GRUB2/openSUSE boot scenario”. Similar instructions may
be able to be found for other distributions.

1.12.5. Some Linux installers do not boot on Fusion

Some older arm64/aarch64 installation ISOs may not boot on Fusion. They will display a
blank screen with either no cursor or a static non-blinking cursor.
A common cause of this problem is a Linux kernel that contains an older version of the
VMware SVGA virtual graphics driver (vmwgfx). This driver appears to have issues when
running under current Fusion releases.
To work around this issue, first see if the installer has an option to boot with a generic
graphics adapter. If it doesn’t, consult your distribution’s documentation for instructions
on how to disable video drivers and disable the VMware vmwgfx driver.

15
The best fix for this issue is to use newer installation media that contain a Linux kernel
version 5.19 or later. These Linux kernels contain an updated VMware SVGA virtual
graphics driver, as well as many other fixes and improvements that allow the VM to run
better on ARM architectures.

1.12.6. “Install VMware Tools” is greyed out for Linux VMs

The Fusion GUI menu item to “Install VMware Tools” is greyed out for arm64 Linux VMs.
This is normal.
VMware intentionally greys out the menu item for Linux VMs because Fusion doesn’t
contain VMware Tools for arm64 Linux. VMware no longer recommends legacy VMware
Tools on Linux, so they didn’t port them to arm64 Linux .
In-guest tools are provided by the “open-vm-tools” and “open-vm-tools-desktop” packages
found in Linux distributions. Install them using the package manager for the distribution
– if the distribution didn’t do it for you automatically.

1.12.7. “Start PXE over IPv4” message displayed

“Start PXE over IPv4” is displayed when a VM is attempting to boot from a network
interface. In almost all cases, this means that the VM cannot find a bootable operating
system from either the hard disk or the CD/DVD drive.
If this message appears, check Table 1.1 for common causes of this error and what to do.

16
 Cause What to do

The virtual CD/DVD drive is not Configure the installation ISO to the virtual
configured to use the installation CD/DVD drive and connect the drive to the
ISO. guest.
The virtual CD/DVD drive is not Connect the virtual CD/DVD to the guest
connected to the guest. and restart the guest.
Corrupt or invalid ISO file. Verify the ISO download using checksums
or hashes provided by the vendor.
Using Intel x86 or x86_64 instal- Ensure you have arm64/aarch64 installa-
lation ISOs. tion ISOs.
The Windows “Press any key to See Section 16.13.4: Windows ISO won’t
start from CD or DVD” prompt boot.
timed out.

Table 1.1: Diagnosing “Start PXE over IPv4”

1.12.8. Unable to change the display resolution of a Linux VM

Changing the resolution of a Linux virtual machine display requires a Linux kernel that
contains the VMware SVGA (vmwgfx) driver. VMware provided the vmwgfx driver to
the Linux kernel source tree, and it should be included out-of-the-box in most vendor
distributions with a 5.14 kernel or later.
Most of the time this issue is seen with Debian 11. The kernel that is released with Debian
11 is a 5.10 version which does not contain the VMware video driver.

1.12.9. Shared folders do not automatically mount

This is a known issue for Linux VMs using open-vm-tools on both x64 and arm64 operating
systems.
One workaround for this issue is to disable then re-enable the Shared Folders from the
Fusion GUI while the VM is running. The folders configured in the VM’s “Shared Folders”
settings should then mount in the VM. This workaround is not persistent, though. It must
be repeated after each reboot of the virtual machine.
A more persistent solution that will mount shared folders automatically at VM boot is to
add an entry to /etc/fstab.

17
 1 Sign in to the VM and sudo to root.
2 Verify the mount point directory /mnt/hgfs exists in the VM. If it doesn’t, create
the empty directory.
3 Edit /etc/fstab. Add the following line to the file:

vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other,_netdev 0 0

4 Reboot the virtual machine.

Shared folders configured in the Fusion GUI for the virtual machine should now mount at
boot time.
Another persistent solution for Linux distributions using systemd can be found in Broad-
com KB article 316336 Enabling HGFS Shared Folders on Fusion or Workstation hosted
Linux VMs for open-vm-tools.

1.12.10. Erratic behavior when multiple hypervisors are in use

(Thanks to @ColoradoMarmot for finding this)

Erratic behavior has been observed when running Fusion at the same time as running
another virtualization product (in the reported case, Parallels). The issue reported is that
host crashes have occurred when under heavy load.
A prudent practice would be to avoid running multiple virtualization products at the same
time.

1.12.11. Host printers are not shared with the VM

Fusion does not provide virtual printing (ThinPrint) features that allows printers defined
on the host Mac to be shared with the VM. VMware has not said if this feature (or
something similar) will be returned in a future release.
In the meantime, try one of the following workarounds to print from a guest:
• If using Bridged networking, use the network printer configuration capabilities that
are present in the guest. Most versions of Linux and Windows can use reasonably
modern networked printers without the need to install drivers.
• If using NAT networking, enable printer sharing on macOS for the printers you
wish to use in the VM. The VM will be able to discover those printers with the
guest operating systems’ networked printing capabilities. This works for any printer
configured to the Mac host.

18
1.12.12. Sound issues in Linux virtual machines

Some Linux distributions are reported to have issues playing sounds when run in a Fusion
virtual machine. The reported issues usually include stuttering and lags of the sound
output. In most cases, the Linux distributions that exhibit the issue are running “pipewire”
versions prior to 1.0.0 instead of PulseAudio for sound support.
Community users are recommending one of the two following workarounds to this issue:

• @gnttz79xro reports that the issues can be fixed in Fedora 38 using the instructions
in the pipewire wiki article “Troubleshooting” (skip to the section “Stuttering Audio
(in Virtual Machine)”). These instructions may be useful for other Linux distributions
as well.
• @maxmori reports that disabling pipewire and switching back to PulseAudio also
addresses the problem. See the Fusion Community forum thread “No sound in Linux
on Apple Silicon”.

1.12.13. Copy/Paste/Drag/Drop on Linux VMs isn’t working

If you’re not running a graphical desktop environment (for example, if you’re running a
Linux server installation with only a text-based console), copy/paste between the host and
guest is not available. Use the macOS Terminal app and perform a Secure Shell (ssh)
login to the VM as a workaround
If you are running a graphical desktop environment and find that copy/paste/drag/drop
is not working, check that the “open-vm-tools-desktop” package provided by your Linux
distribution is installed in the VM. Many distributions will install automatically install
the base open-vm-tools package but may not install open-vm-tools-desktop for you.
If copy/paste is working but drag/drop of files between host and guest isn’t, check to see
that you are running an X11 (Xorg) session and not Wayland. Drag/Drop of files between
host and guest currently requires X11 (Xorg).

1.12.14. GNOME 46 display issues with 3D enabled

Users of distributions that include the GNOME 46 desktop environment may find that
GNOME applications (such as Settings or Software) don’t display properly when 3D
acceleration is enabled for the VM. Figure 1.2 contains an example from the Settings
application on openSUSE Tumbleweed using the GNOME environment:
This issue has been observed in several Linux distributions – and does not appear to be
exclusive to Fusion. It has been observed on VirtualBox and physical systems with nVidia
graphics cards.

19
 Figure 1.2: GNOME 46 display issues

The issue is caused by a combination of the latest GTK4 graphical toolkit used by GNOME
46 and bugs in the Mesa 3D 24.0 OpenGL library. Enabling 3D acceleration in Fusion
when this combination is present in the VM causes the GTK4 library to use new 3D
rendering code which triggers the bugs in Mesa.
Upgrading the Mesa libraries to version 24.0.5 or later fixes the bugs that caused this
issue in Fusion. Most distributions should now have Mesa 24.0.5 or later available.
If upgrading Mesa is not possible, use one of the following workarounds:

• Disable 3D acceleration in the VM’s settings, or

• Re-configure the GTK4 toolkit to use an older OpenGL 3D renderer (the one that
worked before the GTK4 developers released their “new and improved” renderer as
their default). This older renderer does not trigger the bugs in Mesa, allowing the
display to work as expected.
To do this, power off the VM and disable 3D acceleration for the VM. Then power on
the VM and open a terminal session as root.
Create the file /etc/profile.d/gtk_renderer.sh with the following contents:

export GSK_RENDERER=gl

20
 Shut down the VM, re-enable 3D acceleration, and power on the VM. 3D acceleration
should now work properly with GNOME applications.
The /etc/profile.d/gtk_renderer.sh file can be removed once Mesa 24.0.5 (or
later) has been installed.
Thanks to @parhom and @brad-x for this workaround.

1.12.15. Blank screen on system console after boot

If you’re running a VM with a Linux kernel version of 6.10.4 through 6.10.7 and you have
3D acceleration turned off in the VM’s settings, you may find that the console screen goes
blank right after boot. No console login prompt is displayed, but the VM is running and
can be accessed via SSH (if so configured).
This issue can be worked around by turning on 3D acceleration in the VM’s settings.
Upgrading the kernel to 6.10.8 or later fixes this issue and allows 3D acceleration to be
turned off.

21
2. Arch Linux
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
— Dante Alighieri, “Inferno”

2.1. General notes

The Fusion Community is reporting that the Arch Linux ARM port has not been suc-
cessfully installed on Fusion. Unlike the Intel versions of Arch, the ARMv8 supported
platforms and images for the Arch ARM port are either single-board computers (Rasp-
berry Pi/ARM development boards) or Chromebooks. The installation images assume
the hardware contains devices that are not provided by Fusion’s virtual hardware. For
example, most of the supported boards have SD cards, which Fusion does not provide.
Arch Linux ARM does not provide a port of open-vm-tools. That will limit the availability
of Fusion features such as shared folders and copy/paste/drag/drop even if you can get it
to run.
Unless you are an experienced developer and have plenty of time on your hands, avoid Arch
Linux on Apple Silicon. And petition the Arch developers to port to ARM SystemReady
hardware.

22
3. CentOS

3.1. General notes

CentOS 9 Stream arm64 is the only release that will install and run on Fusion.

Warning

CentOS 8 Stream and all CentOS Linux releases cannot run on Fusion as they
contain ARM kernels that are incompatible with Apple Silicon hardware.

3.2. Fusion features for CentOS guests

For Centos 9 Stream:

• 3D acceleration: Not supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and auto-fit when resizing
the console window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from CentOS repos.

3.3. Creating a Centos 9 Stream VM

When creating a CentOS 9 Stream VM, configure it with a guest operating system type of
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 64-bit Arm”. This will create the VM with default settings
of:
• Two CPUs
• 4096 MB of memory
• A virtual disk size of 20 GB.
These can be increased if required. It’s not recommended to reduce these values below the
defaults.

23
 Warning

If the operating system type is set to “Other Linux 5.x Kernel 64-bit Arm”, the
resulting VM may not be configured with sufficient memory or disk to meet CentOS
minimum system requirements. This may cause the CentOS installer to fail during
installation unless the VM’s settings are changed.

3.4. Use the “4k” kernel

Recent CentOS 9 Stream installers will offer the option for 4k or 64k page size in the
Software Selection dialog: (see Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1: Software selection dialog

Leave “Page size” in the “Kernel Options” at the default value of “4k”.

Warning

Do not choose the “64k” kernel. You will end up with a VM that won’t boot. Apple
Silicon hardware does not support 64k page sizes, so Fusion can’t run these kernels.

24
4. Debian

4.1. General notes

Debian 12 “Bookworm” is recommended for use with Fusion. It contains an updated kernel
and open-vm-tools.
Debian 11 “Bullseye” can be used with Fusion, but has reduced functionality. Use 11.4 or
later if you must use Debian 11. Debian 11 is considered a long-term support release as of
2024-08-15. It will continue to receive security updates until 2026-09-31. Not all packages
in the Debian 11 release will be receiving security updates.
Debian 10 “Buster” is officially listed by VMware as supported by Fusion, but reached its
end-of-life date on 2024-06-30. It is no longer receiving updates.

4.2. Fusion features for Debian guests

For Debian 11 “Bullseye” 11.x (starting with 11.4):

• 3D acceleration: Not supported.

• Console resolution: Not available out-of-the-box. See Section 4.4: Changing screen
resolution on Debian 11 for a workaround.
• In-guest tools: Not available out-of-the-box. See Section 4.5: open-vm-tools for
Debian 11 for a workaround.

For Debian 12 “Bookworm” (and “Trixie/Sid/Testing” test releases):

• 3D acceleration: Supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and auto-fit when resizing
the console window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Debian repos.

25
4.3. Creating a Debian VM

Either drag/drop of the ISO or custom virtual machine methods can be used.
For a Debian 11 VM, set the operating system type to “Debian 11.x 64-bit Arm”. For a
Debian 12 or Testing VM, set the operating system type to “Debian 12.x 64-bit Arm”.

4.4. Changing screen resolution on Debian 11

Debian 11 on arm64 ships with a 5.10 version of the Linux kernel. This kernel works
with Fusion but is unable to resize the screen resolution. The kernel does not contain a
VMware virtual graphics driver that will allow resizing of the screen resolution.
The officially supported solution to this issue is to upgrade to Debian 12. Debian 12
contains a newer kernel which does support resizing of the console resolution out-of-the-
box.
If you must stay with Debian 11, installing a 5.19 or later kernel from the “bullseye-
backports” repository will allow the screen resolution to be changed.

Warning

None of the bullseye-backport kernels receive security updates.

To access this repository, it must be added to the list of available repositories for in-
stallation. Full instructions on how to do this can be found in the “Debian Backports »
Instructions” post on the debian.org website. A short version follows:

1 Open your terminal application and sudo to root.

2 Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main

3 Run the following command to update the available package information:

Linux shell
# apt update

4 Run the following command to list kernels available for installation:

26
 Linux shell
# apt list ’linux-image*’

Anything with "bullseye-backports" attached to the name is available from the

backports repo.
5 Install a 5.19 or later kernel from the bullseye-backports repo. Example:

Linux shell
# apt install linux-image-5.19.0-0.deb11.2-arm64/bullseye-backports

Note: Be sure to specify the full name of the package. Using a partial package name
such as linux-image-5.19.0-0.deb11.2/bullseye-backports will attempt
to install all variants of the given kernel and will result in an installation failure.

Tip

Kernels that are known to work include:

• linux-image-6.0.0-0.deb11.2-arm64/bullseye-backports
• linux-image-5.19.0-0.deb11.2-arm64/bullseye-backports

4.5. open-vm-tools for Debian 11

The open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools desktop packages are available for Debian 11 in the
“bullseye-backports” repository.
To install open-vm-tools
1 Install a 5.19 or later kernel as noted in Section 4.4: Changing screen resolution on
Debian 11.
2 Install the open-vm-tools packages from the backports repository. Here’s an example:

Linux shell
# apt install -t bullseye-backports open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop

27
4.6. Upgrading Debian 11 to Debian 12

Debian supports the in-place upgrading of an existing Debian 11 “Bullseye” system to

Debian 12 “Bookworm”. See the Debian 12 release notes for guidance on how to perform
this upgrade.
Debian recommends that packages installed from the “bullseye-backports” repo be removed
before attempting an upgrade. If you have installed a kernel or open-vm-tools packages
into a Debian 11 VM from the “bullseye-backports” repo, please remove them and revert
the sources.list file to its standard contents before upgrading.

28
5. EVE-NG and GNS3
I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
— HAL 9000, “2001: A Space Odyssey”

5.1. GNS3 and EVE-NG VMs don’t work

This is seen frequently enough in the Fusion forums that it merits its own discussion.
Many networking professionals and students preparing for network certification use these
tools to emulate physical networking configurations. They expect that the VMs for these
tools can be used on the latest Macs as they could on Intel Macs.
Unfortunately after downloading the VMs from their official web sites and installing them,
users are finding that the VMs don’t work. Attempts to power them on result in a Fusion
error message saying that the VMs require an x86 processor.
This isn’t a problem with Fusion. It’s a problem with the VMs. They are built to run on
Intel hardware. They can’t run under Fusion on Apple Silicon Macs.

5.2. Workarounds

5.2.1. GNS3 workarounds

According to the post “GNS3 and VMWare Fusion” on the GNS3 community boards, most
people on Apple Silicon Macs run the GNS3 GUI on the Mac and run the GNS3 server on
a remote (Intel CPU) host. The GNS3 server software that’s included in the VM only runs
on an Intel Linux platform.
The GNS3 VM or the GNS3 server software may be able to run using Intel emulation
(such as UTM). Detailed instructions on the feasibility of this is outside the scope of the
Companion Guide. Search the Internet for more guidance.

29
5.2.2. EVE-NG workarounds

The EVE-NG VM is not supported on Apple Silicon CPUs. See the EVE-NG system
requirements.
There are YouTube videos that have instructions on installing the bare-metal EVE-NG
ISO under UTM with Intel CPU emulation. While this solution may be functional, there
most likely will be performance issues due to the overhead of Intel CPU emulation.
Detailed instructions for installing the EVE-NG ISO under UTM are outside the scope of
the Companion Guide. Search the Internet for more guidance.

30
6. Fedora

6.1. General notes

Currently supported versions of Fedora Server and Workstation as well as the Rawhide
development version will install and run with Fusion.
Supported Fedora versions as of the date of this revision of the Companion guide are:
• Fedora 40
• Fedora 41
EOL releases starting with Fedora 35 are also known to work with Fusion. These releases
can be found on the archive folder of Fedora’s software download site. The Fedora Project
does not recommend their continued use as they no longer receive security or bug fixes.

6.2. Fusion features for Fedora guests

For Fedora:
• 3D acceleration: Supported (Fedora 36 and later).
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and auto-fit when resizing
the console window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Fedora repos.

6.3. Creating a Fedora VM

Either drag/drop of the ISO or custom virtual machine methods can be used. You may need
to set the guest operating system type to “Fedora 64-bit Arm” when using the drag/drop
method.

31
6.4. Known issues

6.4.1. Workstation Live ISOs for aarch64 aren’t found

If you go to the Fedora download pages looking for a Fedora Workstation aarch64 (ARM)
Live ISO to use for installing your new VM, you will not find it. Only an aarch64 Raw
(raw.xz) image file is listed.

Warning

Don’t use the raw.xz file. It is a disk image designed to be copied to an SD card for
use on single-board computers (e.g. Raspberry Pi).

The Fedora Project indicates that the lack of a Live ISO is due to a bug in their build
process that they’ve not been able to squash.
For a new installation of Fedora, use the Fedora Everything aarch64 Network Install ISO.
Here are download links for the Everything ISO:
• Fedora 40 Everything aarch64 ISO download link
• Fedora 41 Everything aarch64 ISO download link
Configure your new VM to use the Everything ISO. At first power on of the VM, the Fedora
anaconda graphical installer will start.
Once you reach the “Installation Summary” screen, click on “Software Selection” (see
Figure 6.1).

32
 Figure 6.1: Fedora Everything installer screen

When the “Software Selection” screen appears, click on “ Fedora Workstation” in the left
hand panel. Select any additional software from the right hand panel (see Figure 6.2).

33
 Figure 6.2: Fedora Everything Software Selection screen

Click “Done” to return to the “Installation Summary” screen, and continue with the Fedora
installation.

6.4.2. Mesa 24.3.2 issues with GNOME

Fedora 41 and Rawhide have included the Mesa 24.3.2 3D acceleration packages in their
recent updates. This version is causing problems with the GNOME desktop environment.
Once a VM has been upgraded to Mesa 24.3.2 packages, the gdm greeter (login screen) no
longer appears. The console remains blank with a blinking cursor.
The issue has been reported to the Mesa developers. Until a fix is available, avoid applying
upgrades to Fedora 41 if your VM is still working properly.
If your VM does not display the graphical login banner (either because you have a new
Fedora Workstation 41 installation, or you’ve applied the broken Mesa 24.3.2 packages),
try the following workaround:

1 Shut down the VM by selecing Virtual Machine Shut Down from the Fusion menu bar.
2 Disable 3D acceleration in the VM’s Display settings.

34
 3 Power on the VM.
4 After the VM completes booting and the blank console screen appears (with a blinking
cursor at the top left), make sure the VM has keyboard focus by clicking the mouse
pointer in the VM or typing + G .

5 Press + Option + Fn + F3 to switch virtual consoles and allow a text-based login.

6 Sign into the VM.
7 Downgrade the mesa-dri-driver package. This will re-install all other Mesa packages.

Linux shell
$ sudo dnf install mesa-dri-drivers-24.2.4-1.fc41.aarch64

8 Restart the VM by clicking Virtual Machine Restart in the Fusion menu bar.

You may need to repeat this process if you install a future Fedora upgrade that installs
the broken packages.

35
7. Gentoo
Hic sunt dracones. (“Here be dragons.”)
— inscribed on the Hunt-Lenox Globe
(c. 1504)

7.1. General notes

Gentoo for arm64 has been reported to install on a Fusion virtual machine. It is considered
experimental and not as polished as the other Gentoo supported architectures.
Use the arm64 Minimal Installation CD boot media to install Gentoo.
There is no Gentoo Handbook for arm64. Use the Handbook for amd64 architectures as
your guide.
The Stage 3 archives containing systemd are known to work. OpenRC has not been tested
at this time, but there should be no reason why it won’t work.
When building a VM for Gentoo:
• Create a custom virtual machine. Do not drag/drop the ISO to create the VM.
• Set the guest operating system type to “Other 5.x Linux kernel 64-bit Arm”.
• Assign two CPUs and 4096 MB of memory to the VM.
• Create a virtual disk of 20 GB or more – 40 GB or more if you are attempting to
install a desktop profile with a GNOME or KDE desktop.
• Assign the boot media ISO to the virtual CD/DVD drive and connect it to the virtual
machine.

36
8. Kali Linux
It must not demand secrecy, and it must be able
to fall into the hands of the enemy without
inconvenience.
— Auguste Kerckhoffs, translated from “La
cryptographie militaire” (1883).

8.1. General notes

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution containing tools for penetration testing and ethical
hacking. Its arm64 versions run on Fusion.
Use Kali Linux 2022.3 or later releases. Earlier releases have issues with the bootable
installer.

8.2. Fusion features for Kali Linux guests

For Kali Linux:

• 3D acceleration: Supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM. Auto-fit does not work
when using the default XFCE window manager. See Section 8.4.2: Screen resolution
fails to change.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Kali Linux
repos. They will be installed automatically if you use the documented Kali Linux
installation procedures.

8.3. Creating a Kali Linux VM

See the Kali Linux documentation article “Installing VMware on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)
Macs (Host)”. This article includes information on how to download an installer image
and how to create a Kali Linux virtual machine in Fusion.
As recommended in the Kali Linux article, create a virtual machine for Kali Linux with:
• Guest operating system type of “Debian 12.x 64-bit Arm”

37
 • Two Virtual CPUs
• 2 GB memory (can be increased if desired)
• 20 GB virtual hard drive (can be increased if desired)

8.4. Known Issues

8.4.1. Installation fails at “Select and install software”

The installation of Kali Linux may fail during the “Select and install software” phase with
either a hang of the installer or the message shown in Figure 8.1.

Figure 8.1: VMware Compatibility Guide

If this occurs, check the size of your virtual hard drive. The installer doesn’t seem to check
available disk space and will fail if there is insufficient space to install all the Kali Linux
software components. A hard drive size of 20GB or more will allow the installation to
complete successfully.

8.4.2. Screen resolution fails to change when resizing the VM’s window

(Thanks to @JamesRule and @Mikero for reporting and explaining this)

Resizing the window of a Kali Linux VM will not change the console resolution. The
console resolution can be changed within the VM, which will then change the window
size.
According to @Mikero, this is an issue with the XFCE window manager that Kali Linux
uses by default. The console resolution will change when resizing the VM’s window in
KDE, GNOME, and Cinnamon, but not XFCE.

38
9. macOS
You can’t get there from here.
— US New England regional idiom

9.1. Fusion on Apple Silicon does not run macOS VMs

Fusion on Apple Silicon does not support virtualization of any macOS version. This is not
a testing or marketing restriction; it is a technology issue. Fusion just isn’t able to run any
macOS VM.
VMware has stated that they are working on a full-featured virtualization solution for
macOS VMs on Apple Silicon but has not committed to when it will be released. Do
not expect that solution to run older macOS versions that do not run natively on Apple
Silicon.

9.2. Workarounds

9.2.1. For macOS 10.15 Catalina and earlier

Run VMs for these versions on an Intel Mac.

What about running macOS VMs on non-Apple PCs?

Yes, you can find resources on the Internet that will tell you how to run macOS on
non-Apple hardware. The Companion Guide is not going to discuss how to do it – or
recommend that you do so.

• Apple’s EULA for macOS explicitly prohibits the use of macOS on non-Apple
hardware. That applies to VMs as well.

• VMware Workstation on PCs does not support macOS VMs. It is a violation of

VMware’s EULA to modify Workstation in order to allow them.

You are 100% on your own should you attempt it. The moderators of the Fusion and
Workstation forums will lock any post and politely warn you that discussions about
running macOS on non-Apple hardware are not allowed.

39
 What about running macOS Intel under an emulator?

There are web articles that suggest it is possible to run macOS under Intel CPU
emulators (such as QEMU or UTM) on Apple Silicon.
Like running macOS on generic Intel hardware, The Companion Guide is not going
to discuss how to do this – or recommend that you do so. You are 100% on your
own should you attempt this. You also should be prepared for stability issues,
performance issues and things that don’t quite work right.

9.2.2. For macOS 11 Big Sur

Run Big Sur VMs on an Intel Mac. Apple doesn’t support it for virtualization on Apple
Silicon Macs.

9.2.3. For macOS 12 Monterey and later

macOS Montery and later can be run as VMs on Apple Silicon Macs with solutions that
use the macOS high level Virtualization Framework. Solutions that use this framework
include:

• UTM, open source, free from https://mac.getutm.app or $9.99 USD from the Mac App
Store. Both versions are functionally identical, but the App Store version provides
automatic updates and a donation to the author to fund future development.
• Parallels Desktop, commercial product, paid.

Solutions that use Apple’s Virtualization Framework have identical capabilities for macOS
virtualization. They also all share the following limitations imposed by Apple’s frame-
work:
• No virtualization of macOS 11 Big Sur
• No resizing of virtual disks
• No virtual disk snapshots
• No drag/drop of files between host Mac and VM
• No ability to pass USB devices to the VM
• No more than two macOS VMs can run at once

40
10. openSUSE Leap

10.1. General notes

openSUSE Leap (“Leap”) version 15.6 is recommended for use in Fusion VMs.
Leap 15.5 and earlier have reached their End-Of-Life dates. openSUSE recommends that
they no longer be used.

10.2. Fusion features for Leap guests

For Leap 15.6 and later:

• 3D acceleration: Supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and via auto-fit when
resizing the VM’s window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Leap repos.

10.3. Creating a Leap VM

For Leap 15.6 and later, either the drag/drop method (dropping the ISO onto the “Select
the Installation Method" dialog) or the custom virtual machine method will work when
creating a new VM.
When prompted for the guest operating system type, use “Other Linux 6.x kernel 64-bit
Arm”.
Modify the VM configuration before powering it up for the first time.
• Increase memory to at least 2048 MB (4096 MB recommended).
• Increase hard disk size to at least 20 GB.

41
11. openSUSE Tumbleweed

11.1. General notes

openSUSE Tumbleweed (“Tumbleweed”) is openSUSE’s continually updated or rolling

distribution. Tumbleweed arm64 will install and run on Fusion.

11.2. Fusion features for Tumbleweed guests

For Tumbleweed:
• 3D acceleration: Supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and via auto-fit when
resizing the VM’s window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Tumbleweed
repos.

11.3. Creating a Tumbleweed VM

A Tumbleweed VM can be created by dragging/dropping the installation ISO on the Fusion

“Select the Installation Method” dialog.
Configure the VM with:
• Guest operating system type of “Other Linux 6.x kernel 64-bit Arm”.
• Minimum 4096 MB of memory.
• Minimum hard disk size of 20 GB.
You must change the memory and hard disk size before powering up the VM. Tumbleweed
will not install with the default VM settings.

42
11.4. Known issues

11.4.1. GNOME applications fail to display correctly when 3D is enabled

When using the GNOME 46 desktop environment in older snapshots of Tumbleweed and
with 3D acceleration enabled, applications may fail to display correctly. This is because
some older Tumbleweed snapshots that contain GNOME 46 also contain buggy Mesa
library versions (24.0.3 or earlier). See Section 1.12.14: GNOME 46 display issues with
3D enabled for further information about this issue.
The issue is fixed in the latest Tumbleweed snapshot.
If you are running older Tumbleweed snapshot and see this issue, use the following
procedure to upgrade your VM:

1 Power off the VM.

2 Disable 3D acceleration in the VM settings.
3 Power on the VM and perform a distribution update (with zypper dup) to the latest
Tumbleweed snapshot.

3D acceleration can be enabled once the latest snapshot is installed.

43
12. Oracle Linux

12.1. General notes

Oracle does not provide the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) for Arm (aarch64)
architectures. The only kernel available is Oracle’s own Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
(UEK).
Oracle Linux 8.6 and earlier versions for Arm (aarch64) contain UEK R6 kernels that are
incompatible with Apple Silicon hardware. These Oracle Linux versions cannot run on
Fusion.
Oracle Linux 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, and 9.x for Arm (aarch64) contain UEK R7 kernels that are
compatible with Apple Silicon hardware. These Oracle Linux versions will all run on
Fusion.

12.2. Fusion features for Oracle Linux guests

For Oracle Linux 8.7, 8.8, and 8.9:

• 3D acceleration: Not supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM. Changing the resolution
with auto-fit by resizing the console window is not available.
• In-guest tools: Not available.
For Oracle Linux 9.x:
• 3D acceleration: Not supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and by auto-fit when resizing
the console window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from Oracle Linux 9
repos.

44
12.3. Creating an Oracle Linux VM

When creating a VM for Oracle Linux, create a custom virtual machine. Configure the
virtual machine with:
• Guest operating system type set to “Other 64-bit Linux 5.x kernel 64-bit Arm”
• Minimum two virtual CPUs
• Minimum 4096 MB memory
• Minimum virtual disk size of 20 GB

45
13. Parrot OS

13.1. General notes

Parrot Security (ParrotOS, Parrot) is a Free and Open source GNU/Linux distribution
based on Debian Stable designed for security experts, developers and privacy aware
people.
Parrot OS does not provide an ARM installation ISO that can be used to create a Fusion
VM. The ARM downloads found on the Parrot OS web site are UTM virtual machine
images which will not run on Fusion. Use the procedure in Section 13.3: Creating a Parrot
OS VM to install Parrot OS in a Fusion VM.

13.2. Fusion features for Parrot OS guests

For ParrotOS:
• 3D acceleration: Supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM. Auto-fit does not work when
using the default MATE window manager. See Section 13.4.1: Screen resolution fails
to change.
• In-guest tools: open-vm-tools is installed automatically. open-vm-tools-desktop is not
installed automatically but it can be installed from the Parrot repos.

13.3. Creating a Parrot OS VM

Parrot OS can be installed by creating a Debian 12 ’“Bookworm” VM, then converting it

to a Parrot OS installation using a script provided by the Parrot OS developers. Use the
following procedure to create a Parrot OS VM on Fusion.

1 Install a Debian 12 “Bookworm” VM. See Chapter 4: Debian for more information.
You can use the default configuration settings of a 20 GB virtual hard disk and 4 GB
of memory for the VM.
When installing Debian 12, do not install a desktop environment – only install the
SSH server and the core operating system.

46
 2 Sign into the new VM as root.
3 Install the “git” utilities.

Linux console
# apt install git

4 Install and run the Parrot OS Debian Conversion Script.

Linux console
# git clone \
https://gitlab.com/parrotsec/project/debian-conversion-script.git
# cd debian-conversion-script
# chmod +x ./install.sh
# ./install.sh

5 When prompted, select the desired Parrot OS edition you’d like to install. Typically
this would be the Home, Security, or HTB editions.
6 Take all defaults for additional items prompted by the installation script.
7 After the script finishes installing packages, choose to exit the script.
8 Copy configuration files to system default locations:

Linux console
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc /etc/skel/.bashrc
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc /root/.bashrc
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.profile /etc/profile
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.profile /etc/skel/.profile
# cp /usr/share/base-files/dot.profile /root/.profile

9 Install open-vm-tools-desktop.

Linux console
# apt install open-vm-tools-desktop

10 Reboot the VM, and sign in as the user you created during the Debian install.
11 Open a terminal session. You should be able to do this by right-clicking on the
desktop and selecting “Open in Terminal”.

47
 12 Copy the Parrot OS default configuration files into your user home directory.

Linux console
$ cd /etc/skel
$ cp -rp .* Desktop Templates $HOME/

13 Sign out, then sign back into the VM.

For more information on the Parrot OS Debian Conversion Script, see

https://gitlab.com/parrotsec/project/debian-conversion-script.

13.4. Known Issues

13.4.1. Screen resolution fails to change when resizing the VM’s window

Resizing the window of a Parrot OS VM will not change the console resolution. This is
an issue with the MATE window manager that Parrot OS uses by default. The console
resolution can be changed within the VM, which will then change the window size.

48
14. Red Hat Enterprise Linux

14.1. General notes

References to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in this section also apply to “downstream”
distributions that are re-builds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux such as:
• Rocky Linux
• AlmaLinux
Oracle Linux differs from RHEL enough to warrant its own discussion. See Chapter 12:
Oracle Linux.
RHEL 9.1 and later arm64 releases provide the best experience when running under
Fusion.

14.2. Fusion features for RHEL guests

For RHEL 9.x:

• 3D acceleration: Not supported.

• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and via auto-fit when
resizing the VM’s window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from RHEL repos.

14.3. Creating a RHEL 9 VM

Either drag/drop or custom virtual machine methods can be used to create a RHEL 9
VM.
When creating a RHEL 9 virtual machine, set the guest operating system type to “Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 9 64-bit Arm”.

49
14.4. Use the “4k” kernel

Recent RHEL 9 installers will offer the option for 4k or 64k page size in the Software
Selection dialog (see Figure 14.1):

Figure 14.1: VMware Compatibility Guide

Leave “Page size” in the “Kernel Options” at the default setting of “4k”.

Warning

Do not choose “64k” – you will end up with a VM that won’t boot. Apple Silicon
hardware does not support 64k page sizes, so Fusion can’t run these kernels.

14.5. Known Issues

14.5.1. RHEL 9.0 installation issues

The installer for RHEL 9.0 has issues which require manual workarounds to install the
operating system. This makes it difficult to install out of the box.
Use RHEL 9.1 or later installation media instead. Not only have the installation issues
been fixed, but the newer releases include both bug and security fixes.

50
14.5.2. RHEL 8 and earlier do not work

The kernels contained in RHEL 8 and earlier are built with 64k page sizes. Apple Silicon
hardware does not support 64k page sizes, so Fusion can’t run these kernels. Red Hat
does not provide an option for a 4k kernel for RHEL 8 and earlier.
There is no setting, ‘tweak”, or “patch” available to make RHEL 8 run.
If you need to run a RHEL 8 environment, consider Oracle Linux 8. Oracle Linux 8.7 and
later runs in a Fusion VM and is application binary compatible with RHEL 8.

51
15. Ubuntu
I’ve got to admit it’s getting better. A little better
all the time (It can’t get no worse).
— The Beatles, “Getting Better”

15.1. General notes

Ubuntu releases known to work on Fusion are:

• 20.04.5 LTS (Focal Fossa).
• 22.04.4 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
• 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)
• 24.10 (Oracular Oriole)
Other releases of Ubuntu are no longer supported by Canonical. They may contain unfixed
bugs and security vulnerabilities.

15.2. Fusion features for Ubuntu guests

For Ubuntu 20.04.x

• 3D acceleration: Not supported.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM. Auto-fit does not change
screen resolution when resizing the VM’s window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop available from the
Ubuntu repos once the HWE kernel is installed.
For Ubuntu 22.04 and later:
• 3D acceleration: Supported. 22.04.x requires the HWE kernel in order to support 3D
acceleration. 22.10 and later support 3D acceleration out-of-the-box.
• Console resolution: Can be changed from within the VM and via auto-fit when
resizing the VM’s window.
• In-guest tools: Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop from the Ubuntu
repos.

52
15.3. Creating an Ubuntu VM

Either drag/drop of the ISO or custom virtual machine installation methods can be used.
The guest operating system type will be automatically set to “Ubuntu 64-bit Arm” when
using the drag/drop installation method.

15.4. Where’s Ubuntu Desktop for ARM?

For Ubuntu releases prior to 24.10, Canonical doesn’t provide a released installer for
Ubuntu Desktop on ARM. You can work around this by either:

• Downloading a daily development build from Section 15.9: Links to Ubuntu arm64
downloads (if available).
• Using the procedure in Section 15.8: How to convert Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu
Desktop on a Ubuntu Server VM.

At the time of publication of this revision of the Companion Guide, Canonical is providing a
Ubuntu Desktop 24.10 ISO for ARM. See Section 15.9: Links to Ubuntu arm64 downloads
for a download link to this ISO.

15.5. Installing 20.04.5 LTS from ISO

Use the standard kernel (5.4) when installing 20.04.5 LTS. The GRUB option for “Boot
and install from HWE kernel” attempts to boot a kernel that doesn’t work.
Once the VM is installed with the 5.4 standard kernel, install the 5.15 HWE kernel
package (linux-image-generic-hwe-20.04). The HWE kernel has better support for ARM
architectures than the standard 5.4 kernel.

15.6. Which ISO for Ubuntu 22.04?

Use the 22.04.4 Server ISO for installation to install Ubuntu 22.04. The 22.04 and 22.04.1
ISOs will not boot in a Fusion VM. The 22.04.2 ISO will boot using its standard 5.15
kernel, but trying to boot the hardware enablement (HWE) kernel in the 22.04.2 ISO
won’t work.

53
15.7. Don’t use the arm64+largemem ISOs

Starting with 22.04.4 LTS, Canonical is providing two ISO installers for Ubuntu Server:
• The default arm64 (4K) ISO
• A new arm64+largemem (64K) ISO
When building a Ubuntu Server VM, use the default arm64 ISO. This ISO is compatible
with Apple Silicon hardware and will run in a Fusion VM.

Warning

Do not use the arm64+largemem installer ISO or switch to the arm64+largemem

kernel in a Fusion VM. The 64K kernel found in the arm64+largemem ISO is
incompatible with Apple Silicon hardware. It will not boot in a Fusion VM. There
are no “tweaks” or “patches” that will enable it to run.

See Choosing between the arm64 and arm64+largemem installer options in the Ubuntu
Server documentation for more information about these two options.

15.8. How to convert Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop

By adding a few packages and making a configuration change, Ubuntu Server can be
“converted” into the equivalent of Ubuntu Desktop. Use the following procedure to perform
the conversion.
Credit: Config Server Firewall website article Ubuntu Network Manager: Enabling and
disabling NetworkManager on Ubuntu.

1 Boot the Ubuntu Server VM and sign in.

2 Open the Terminal app and launch a root shell.

Linux shell
$ sudo -s

3 Install the Ubuntu Desktop packages.

If you are running any version of Ubuntu, you can install the full set of Ubuntu
Desktop packages using the following command:

54
 Linux shell
# apt install ubuntu-desktop

If you are running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or later, you can install a minimal set of
Ubuntu Desktop packages using the following command

Linux shell
# apt install ubuntu-desktop-mimimal

4 Install open-vm-tools-desktop.

Linux shell
# apt install open-vm-tools-desktop

5 Install snap packages appropriate for your Ubuntu release.

For Ubuntu 23.04 or earlier:

Linux shell
# snap install snap-store snapd-desktop-integration

For Ubuntu 24.04:

Linux shell
# snap install snap-store --channel=latest/stable/ubuntu-24.04
# snap install snapd-desktop-integration \
--channel=latest/stable/ubuntu-24.04

For Ubuntu 24.10:

Linux shell
# snap install snap-store --channel=2/stable/ubuntu-24.10
# snap install snapd-desktop-integration \
--channel=latest/stable/ubuntu-24.10
# snap install prompting-client --channel=1/stable/ubuntu-24.10
# snap install desktop-security-center --channel=1/stable/ubuntu-24.10

6 Disable the use of systemd-networkd for networking management.

55
 Linux shell
# systemctl disable systemd-networkd.service
# systemctl mask systemd-networkd.service
# systemctl stop systemd-networkd.service

7 If running 24.04 or later, skip to step 8.

Rename the .yaml file found inside the /etc/netplan directory. Here’s an example:

Linux shell
# cd /etc/netplan
# mv 00-installer-config.yaml 00-installer-config.yaml.save

8 Create a file /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml with the following

contents:

# All network configuration is to be done by NetworkManager

network:
version: 2
renderer: NetworkManager

9 Set the system to use NetworkManager for networking management.

Linux shell
# netplan generate
# systemctl unmask NetworkManager
# systemctl enable NetworkManager
# systemctl start NetworkManager

10 Update boot files

Linux shell
# update-initramfs -u -k all

11 Reboot the VM

Linux shell
# systemctl reboot

Upon reboot, the VM should display a graphical login. Logging in will now start a graphical

56
session.

15.9. Links to Ubuntu arm64 downloads

The links found in Table 15.1 are shortcuts to the currently supported Ubuntu versions
available in the Ubuntu CD image repository. They were verified as of 2025-01-09. They
may change without notice.

Ubuntu Version Download Link

20.04.5 LTS Server ubuntu-20.04.5-live-server-arm64.iso

22.04.5 LTS Server ubuntu-22.04.5-live-server-arm64.iso
22.04 LTS Desktop daily build No longer available. Use Ubuntu Server
and “convert” to Ubuntu Desktop.
24.04.1 LTS Server ubuntu-24.04.1-live-server-arm64.iso
24.04.1 LTS Desktop daily build noble-desktop-arm64.iso
24.10 Desktop ubuntu-24.10-desktop-arm64.iso
24.10 Server ubuntu-24.10-live-server-arm64.iso

Table 15.1: Ubuntu download locations

15.10. Change delay for display of GRUB boot loader menu

The GRUB boot loader’s boot menu is useful in situations where a kernel update (or
other circumstance) requires manual intervention to the Linux boot process. Ubuntu
documentation describes how to display the GRUB boot loader menu during boot by
pressing Esc immediately after boot and before the Ubuntu splash screen is displayed.
However, the window is very short for the key to be recognized. Most people can’t get the
process to work for them reliably.
The timing can be altered so that it delays the boot of the default kernel, giving you more
of a chance for Esc to be recognized.
1 Sign in to the VM.
2 Sudo to a root shell and edit /etc/default/grub with your favorite text editor.

57
 3 Change GRUB_TIMEOUT (the delay in seconds until the default kernel is booted)
to a more reasonable value.
Find the line in the file containing

GRUB_TIMEOUT=0

and change it to

GRUB_TIMEOUT=5

Tip

A delay of 5 seconds is typically sufficient. Longer delays can be specified if

desired.

4 Save the changes and exit the editor.

5 Update the grub configuration:

Linux shell
# update-grub

The GRUB boot menu will now give you 5 seconds to press Esc to display the boot menu.
If the Esc key is not pressed, the default kernel will boot.

58
16. Windows 11 ARM
Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s
black.
— Henry Ford, on colors for the Model T

16.1. General notes

Windows 11 ARM is the only version of Windows client supported with Fusion on Apple
Silicon Macs.

What about other Windows versions?

Windows client versions 8.1 and earlier only run on x86 or x86_64 processors. They
won’t work under Fusion on Apple Silicon.
Windows 10 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x86_64 only run on Intel CPUs. So they won’t run
under Fusion.
Windows 10 ARM does run on the Qualcomm ARM processors found in Microsoft
Surface devices, but isn’t supported by Fusion. Users have tried to get it to work.
All reports are that those efforts have been unsuccessful. Don’t waste your time.
Windows Server (all versions) won’t work either. They also require Intel CPUs.

Windows 11 22H2 Home and Pro are at end of service.

Microsoft has announced that Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 22H2 are at
end of service as of 2024-08-10. They will no longer receive any updates. To continue
receiving security updates and bug fixes, Microsoft recommends updating to the
latest version of Windows – currently 24H2.

Fusion provides both UEFI Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Modules that are required
for Windows 11 as well as device drivers for the VMware virtual graphics and virtual
network adapters.

59
16.2. Fusion features for Windows 11 ARM guests

Broadcom KB article 315609 Features of Windows 11 VM on Mac with Intel vs. Apple
silicon documents the features that are supported by Fusion for Windows 11 ARM guest
operating systems. The following common features are unavailable for Windows 11 ARM
guests:
• Unity mode1
• Shared folders (see Section 16.13.9: No folder sharing option in VM Settings for a
workaround)

16.3. VMware Tools versions for Windows 11 ARM VMs

Tip

Need to download a version of VMware Tools that’s not bundled with your Fusion
version? You can download all VMware Tools versions from the Broadcom support
site. You don’t need a Fusion subscription, but registration with Broadcom’s site is
required.

Documentation and release notes for VMware Tools can be found here on the Broadcom
documentation web site. Note that there is a drop-down that can be used to select the
version of VMware Tools – it defaults to Version 12.5.0.
VMware Tools 12.3.0

• These are bundled with Fusion 13.5.

• This is the first version of VMware Tools to support copy/paste/drag/drop, console
screen resizing, and 3D acceleration.

VMware Tools 12.3.5

• These are bundled with Fusion 13.5.2.

• This release contains security fixes described in VMware security advisory VMSA-
2023-0024.

VMware Tools 12.4.0

• These were released on 2024-03-22 and are not bundled with a Fusion version.
• This release updates some bundled library components and adds support for OpenGL
4.2.
1
Unity mode has been removed from Fusion starting with Fusion 13.6 – yes, even on Intel Macs. Sorry.

60
VMware Tools 12.4.5

• These are bundled with Fusion 13.6 and 13.6.1.

• This release updates some bundled library components and adds support for OpenGL
4.3.

VMware Tools 12.5.0

• These were released on 2024-10-08 and are not currently bundled with a Fusion
version.
• This release updates some bundled open source components and adds support for
software rendering of OpenGL 4.5 when 3D acceleration is disabled.
• This version requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (Arm64)
version 14.40.33810 to be installed.

16.4. 3D acceleration for Windows ARM VMs

All 3D support on Windows 11 ARM requires Fusion 13.5 or later.

For VMware Tools versions 12.3.0 and 12.3.5:
• DirectX 11 (feature levels 11_0, 10_1, 10_0, 9_3, 9_2, and 9_1) is supported.
• OpenGL is not supported.
For VMware Tools 12.4.0:
• DirectX 11 (feature levels 11_0, 10_1, 10_0, 9_3, 9_2, and 9_1) is supported.
• OpenGL 4.2 is supported.
For VMware Tools 12.4.5 and later:
• DirectX 11 (feature levels 11_0, 10_1, 10_0, 9_3, 9_2, and 9_1) is supported.
• OpenGL 4.3 is supported.

61
16.5. Windows 11 ARM licensing

Windows isn’t free

Microsoft will not stop you from running an unlicensed copy of Windows. But please
respect Microsoft licensing policies and (legally) obtain licenses for Windows VMs
that you run regularly.

Microsoft allows retail licenses for Windows 11 Home or Professional to activate Windows
11 ARM. You can use a license purchased for an Intel PC on a Windows 11 ARM VM. If you
don’t have a license, purchase it from a Microsoft authorized seller (for your protection) or
the Microsoft Store (from within the VM).
Windows 10 retail licenses can also be used to activate Windows 11 ARM.
Windows 11 ARM can be used without activation, but personalization features are un-
available. You’ll also be prompted about having an inactivated copy.

16.6. Downloading Windows 11 ARM ISO installation media

Note

Microsoft recently released Windows 11 24H2 for both ARM and x86_64 platforms.
24H2 is the current General Availability Channel release, and will be the one you
get when using either of the methods described below.

Warning

There are issues with Fusion versions 13.6.0 and earlier when downloading and
installing Windows 11 ARM 24H2. Upgrade to Fusion 13.6.1 or later to avoid these
issues.

Use one of these methods to obtain Windows 11 ARM ISO installation media.

• Option 1: Use the “Get Windows from Microsoft” tool in Fusion (see Figure 16.1) to
download Windows 11 ARM installation media directly from Microsoft. This is the
easiest method for Fusion users to obtain Windows 11 ARM media.

62
 Figure 16.1: “Get Windows from Microsoft” in Fusion

Use of this tool is discussed in Section 16.8: Installing Windows 11 from ISO using
“Get Windows from Microsoft”.
You only need to “Get Windows from Microsoft” once. The generated ISO is saved on
your hard drive. It can be reused for additional Windows VM installations.
• Option 2: Download a generic Windows 11 ARM ISO from the Microsoft web site
page Download Windows 11 for Arm-based PCs.

Warning

Make sure you download the ISO from Microsoft using the above web site.
ISOs downloaded from Microsoft’s Download Windows 11 web site are for
Intel/AMD x86_64 processors and will not work on Apple Silicon CPUs.

63
 Note

The ISO downloaded from Microsoft’s web site does not contain a driver for VMware’s
virtual network driver provided by a Fusion VM. See Section 16.9: Installing
Windows 11 from ISOs not created by Fusion for instructions on using this ISO to
install a Windows VM.

16.7. Creating the Windows ISO from the command line

VMware provides a command line equivalent of the “Get Windows from Microsoft” tool
found in the GUI. But it’s not very clear how to use it from the description in the Fusion
documentation.

Tips

Ensure you have at least 12 GB of free disk space available in addition to the disk
space required for your VM. This space is needed for the Fusion tool to download
and build the Windows installation ISO.
If you are looking to install Windows 11 Home Edition, choose the “Professional”
edition in the Fusion tool. The generated ISO will contain both Windows 11 Home
and Professional Editions.
If you’re uncomfortable with using the Terminal commands in the procedure, a
utility 24H2_esd2iso is available from GitHub that will automate the download
process.

Use the following procedure to download the ISO using the command line.
1 Open the Terminal app.
2 Change the working directory to the Desktop.

Mac Terminal
% cd ~/Desktop

3 Mount the ISO file containing the VMware Tools for Windows 11 ARM (the double
quotes are required).

Mac Terminal
% TooslIsoDir="/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/isoimages"
% hdiutil attach "$ToolsIsoDir"/arm64/windows.iso

64
 The ISO will appear on the Desktop as “VMware Tools” and will be found at
/Volumes/VMware Tools.
4 Download the ESD from Microsoft for the desired edition and language (the double
quotes are required):

Mac Terminal
% vmw_esd2iso getesd --edition editionname --lang tag

where
editionname is Professional for an ISO containing Home and Professional edi-
tions, or Enterprise for an ISO containing Professional and Enterprise editions.
tag is one of the Windows language tags used to select the desired language of the
Windows installer (see Table 16.1):

Tag Language Tag Description

bg-bg Bulgarian (Bulgaria) lt-lt Lithuanian (Lithuania)
cs-cz Czech (Czechia) lv-lv Latvian (Latvia)
da-dk Danish (Denmark) nb-no Norwegian Bokmål (Norway)
de-de German (Germany) nl-nl Dutch (Netherlands)
el-gr Greek (Greece) pl-pl Polish (Poland)
en-gb English (UK) pt-br Portuguese (Brazil)
en-us English (USA) pt-pt Portuguese (Portugal)
es-es Spanish (Int’l Sort) ro-ro Romanian (Romania)
es-mx Spanish (Mexico) ru-ru Russian (Russia)
et-ee Estonian (Estonia) sk-sk Slovak (Slovakia)
fi-fi Finnish (Finland) sl-si Slovenian (Slovenia)
fr-ca French (Canada) sr-latn-rs Serbian (Latin, Serbia)
fr-fr French (France) sv-se Swedish (Sweden)
he-il Hebrew (Israel) th-th Thai (Thailand)
hr-hr Croatian (Croatia) tr-tr Turkish (Turkey)
hu-hu Hungarian (Hungary) uk-ua Ukrainian (Ukraine)
it-it Italian (Italy) zh-cn Chinese (Simplified, China)
ja-jp Japanese (Japan) zh-tw Chinese (Traditional,
ko-kr Korean (Korea) Taiwan)

Table 16.1: Windows languages

The ESD file will be downloaded to your Desktop. Note its name as you will need it
for the next step.
5 Create the ISO file from the ESD and include the VMware network driver (the double
quotes are required).

65
 Mac Terminal
% vmw_esd2iso generateiso --esd esd-file \
--drivers "/Volumes/VMware Tools/vmxnet3"

where esd-file is the name of the ESD file downloaded in step 5. Enclose the file
name in double quotes if the name contains spaces.
The argument to the −−drivers option must be enclosed in double quotes because
it contains spaces in the file names.
The ISO file will be generated in the Desktop folder.
6 Clean up after the ISO is generated.
Use the Finder to
• unmount the VMware Tools ISO
• delete the downloaded ESD file from the Desktop folder – it’s no longer needed.
Don’t forget to empty the trash to complete the deletion process.

16.8. Installing Windows 11 from ISO using “Get Windows from Microsoft”

To create and install a Windows 11 ARM virtual machine using the “Get Windows from
Microsoft” that’s built into Fusion, see “Download and Install Windows 11 as Guest
Operating System on Apple Silicon Mac” in the Fusion documentation. The documentation
contains instructions for using “Get Windows from Microsoft” and walk-through of creating
the Windows 11 virtual machine.

Tips

Ensure you have at least 12 GB of free disk space available in addition to the disk
space required for your VM. This space is needed for the Fusion tool to download
and build the Windows installation ISO.
If you want to install Windows 11 Home Edition, choose the “Professional” edition
in the Fusion tool. The generated ISO will contain both Windows 11 Home and
Professional Editions.

The Fusion documentation assumes that you are familiar with installing Windows from a
Microsoft ISO file. If you are not familiar with installing Windows from an ISO file, see
Appendix B: Windows 11 Installation Resources.

66
After the Windows setup has completed and you have signed into the VM, install VMware
Tools. See Section 16.11: Installing VMware Tools on Windows 11 ARM for more informa-
tion.

16.9. Installing Windows 11 from ISOs not created by Fusion

Note

This topic applies to Windows 11 ARM 24H2 and later. Microsoft made changes
in Windows 11 24H2 that allow third-party network adapter drivers to be more
easily installed. It’s recommended to use Windows 11 24H2 (the current General
Availability Channel version) if you are installing a new VM.

If you have Windows 11 24H2 ARM ISO media that was

• downloaded from Microsoft’s web site or
• created with w11arm_esd2iso, CrystalFetch, Parallels, or UUPdump
you can use them to install a Fusion VM. See “Install Windows 11 as the Guest Operating
system” in the Fusion documentation.
But... these ISOs do not contain a driver for the VMware virtual network device like the
ISO that is built with Fusion’s “Get Windows from Microsoft” feature. The driver will need
to be installed during the Windows setup process in order to complete the installation.
Use the following procedure to install the VMware network driver and complete the
installation:

1 Continue with the Windows out of box experience (OOBE) setup process until the
“Let’s connect you to a network” screen appears (see Figure 16.2). Stop here, go to
the Fusion menu bar, and click on Virtual Machine Install VMware Tools .

67
 Figure 16.2: Let’s connect you to a network

2 Answer the prompts to allow the VMware Tools installation CD to be connected to

the virtual machine. Wait about 10 seconds or so for the VM to recognize and mount
the VMware Tools installer.
3 Return to the “Let’s connect you to a network” screen, and click on the “Install driver”
button (see Figure 16.3).

68
 Figure 16.3: Installing a new network driver

4 In the file dialog that appears, double click on “DVD Drive (D:) VMware Tools” to
open the Tools installer CD (see Figure 16.4).

69
 Figure 16.4: Open the VMware Tools installer CD

5 In the next dialog, single click on the “vmxnet3” folder to select it, then click on the
“Select Folder" button to start the driver installation (see Figure 16.5).

70
 Figure 16.5: Select the VMware network driver for installation

6 You will be returned to the “Let’s connect you to a network” screen, and you should
see the network driver being installed. Wait for the network driver be installed and
the network connected (see Figure 16.6 for a successful installation).
Once the network has been connected, click the “Next” button to continue the setup
of Windows.

71
 Figure 16.6: Network driver successfully installed and connected

When the Windows installation completes and you have signed into the VM, the VMware
Tools installation CD will still be mounted to the VM. Open File Explorer in the VM
and then open the D: drive that has the mounted VMware Tools CD. Double click on
“setup.exe” (the VMware Tools setup wizard) to complete the VMware Tools installation.
See Section 16.11: Installing VMware Tools on Windows 11 ARM for more information.

16.10. Windows 11 post-installation tasks

1 Sign in to the VM.

2 Open the Microsoft Store. The Microsoft Store may take a few moments to open
the first time as it is being downloaded from Microsoft and installed. If you have
problems opening the Microsoft Store, see Section 16.13.8: Microsoft Store issues in
a new VM.
3 Download and apply all available application updates from the Microsoft Store.
4 Run Windows Update to obtain the most recent updates for Windows 11. You may
need to do this more than once.

72
16.11. Installing VMware Tools on Windows 11 ARM

See the topic “Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows” in the Fusion documentation
for instructions on how to install VMware Tools in a Windows VM.

Warning

When following the instructions in the Fusion documentation, ignore the note in
step 11 that tells you to use Powershell when installing VMware Tools for Windows
on ARM. VMware Tools now has a setup wizard for Windows on ARM that works
the same way that it does for Windows on Intel.

Tips

Should you need to launch the VMware Tools setup wizard manually, the setup
program is named setup.exe for Windows 11 ARM, not setup64.exe.
If presented with a Windows UAC prompt asking you to grant permission to modify
your system, grant the permission.
You might need to move windows or use Option-Tab to see the VMware Tools Setup
wizard screens.
When installing VMware Tools, select the “Complete” setup option.

16.12. Running Windows Insider Preview builds

You don’t need Windows Insider builds

Windows Insider releases are not required to be used with Fusion. ISOs built using
the procedures in this Guide will install Microsoft Windows 11 ARM release channel
builds (the same ones “regular” PC’s get).
Use Windows Insider releases of Windows only if you need to perform testing of
future versions of Windows 11 and you are willing to provide feedback to Microsoft.
You will need to register for the Microsoft Windows Insider program to obtain
Windows Insider builds.

Starting with Fusion 13.6 on macOS 15 Sequoia, it is no longer necessary to convert a

VHDX file to use Windows Insider Preview builds of Windows 11 ARM. Windows 11 ARM
VM can now be enrolled for the Windows Insider Program from within the VM.
To enroll the VM, open the Settings app in the Windows VM. Then choose Windows Update
Windows Insider Program . Click the “Get Started” button to start the enrollment process.

73
Once the VM is enrolled the VM can be switched from the release channel to the Canary,
Dev, Beta, or Release Preview channels. Note that you may need a valid Windows license
in order to receive the Windows Insider builds once you’ve registered the system.
If you don’t have a licensed version of Windows you can still run Insider Preview builds.
You will need to create ISO installation media for Insider Preview builds from UUPdump
on any Windows system (physical or virtual, Intel or ARM) – sorry, you can’t do this
natively on your Mac. You can then use that ISO to create a new VM.

16.13. Known issues

16.13.1. “Get Windows from Microsoft” fails to create ISO

If you are running Fusion 13.5 and the macOS system language is not English, the “Get
Windows from Microsoft” tool in the Fusion GUI may fail to create an ISO. Upgrading to
Fusion 13.5.1 or later fixes this particular issue.
If you are running Fusion 13.5.1 or later and still encounter problems getting Windows
from Microsoft, wait a while and try to “Get Windows from Microsoft” again. Microsoft’s
servers appear to have some stability issues recently.

16.13.2. Windows 11 24H2 ISO is detected as Windows Server 2025.

When dragging a Windows 11 24H2 ISO onto the “Select an Installation Method” dialog
on Fusion 13.6.0, the ISO is is incorrectly detected as containing “Windows Server 2025”.
When this happens, the VM will be incorrectly configured and will not work properly – for
example, it will fail to power on stating that it requires an Intel CPU.
This is a bug in Fusion 13.6.0. Upgrading to Fusion 13.6.1 fixes this bug.

16.13.3. Windows 11 ARM 24H2 ISO boots, but screen goes blank

When installing from a Windows 11 ARM 24H2 ISOs created with the “Get Windows from
Microsoft“ process in Fusion versions 13.6.0 or earlier, the initial Windows Setup screen
briefly appears after boot and then the console window goes blank. This is caused by these
versions of Fusion installing a VMware video driver in the ISO that has issues with the
Windows 11 24H2 Setup environment.
To fix this, upgrade to Fusion 13.6.1, and re-run “Get Windows from Microsoft”. This will
create a new Windows 11 ARM 24H2 ISO that does not contain the VMware video driver.
Windows Setup will then work properly.

74
Remember to install VMware Tools after the Windows installation process completes. The
VMware video driver will be installed by VMware Tools, and features like screen resizing,
drag/drop, and 3D acceleration will work.

16.13.4. Windows ISO won’t boot

A common problem found when installing Windows 11 ARM from ISO media is that the
installer doesn’t seem to boot. The virtual machine powers on and seems to boot, but then
displays “Start PXE over IPv4” – and sits there waiting... (and waiting...) .
Many users suspect a problem with Fusion when this happens. There’s most likely nothing
wrong with either Fusion or your VM.
First, make sure you’re using a Windows 11 ARM ISO created with the procedures in the
Companion Guide. ISOs downloaded from Microsoft’s web site won’t work – they are for
Intel processors..
If you have verified that you have the correct ISO, then you probably missed an important
step in the boot process.
After the VM is powered on, the Windows installer displays a “Press any key to boot from
CD or DVD” prompt. In order to continue with the installer, you must do the following
after you first see the “Press any key” message:
1 Click the mouse in the VM’s console window or type + G to set keyboard focus to
the VM.
2 Press any key on the keyboard.
The “Press any key” prompt is on a timer. You only get about five seconds to do these two
steps.
Here’s what happens if you don’t do these steps quickly enough:
• The “Press any key” prompt times out and the VM will try to boot from the next
available device – which is the hard drive.
• The hard drive boot fails because there’s no bootable system installed yet.
• The VM tries to boot from the next available device – the network.
• The “Start PXE” message is displayed as the VM is waiting for a network boot server.
Which it will never find.
All is not lost if you don’t perform the two steps quickly enough. Simply power the VM off
using the Fusion GUI, then power it back on again to start over.
There’s no Fusion setting that can change this behavior. This is standard behavior for
Microsoft installation media – even on a physical PC.

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16.13.5. C: drive size doesn’t change when expanding the virtual disk

Increaing the size of a Windows VM’s virtual hard drive in the Fusion GUI doesn’t
automatically increase the size of the C:\drive. After expanding a virtual disk, utilities in
the VM must be used in order to change partition sizes and expand the file system so that
the increased space can be used by the VM. Fusion warns you of this when increasing the
size of a virtual disk (see Figure 16.7).

Figure 16.7: Installing a new network driver

The Disk Management utility in the VM is typically used to resize Windows file systems.
But... there’s a catch if you’re trying to expand the C:\drive.
During Windows installation, Windows Setup creates a Recovery Partition (containing
tools that can be used to troubleshoot and repair a Windows installation) on the system
disk. This partition is created at the end of the disk immediately following the C:\drive
partition.
After a virtual disk is expanded in Fusion, Windows Disk Management will display what
is shown in Figure 16.8. The Recovery Partition, which was at the end of the original
unexpanded virtual disk, now sits between the C:\drive and the newly created unallocated
space. Disk Management is unable to expand the C:\drive because the unallocated space
does not reside immediately next to the C:\drive’s partition.

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 Figure 16.8: Windows Recovery Partition blocking free space

To fix this problem, the Recovery Partition has to be moved so that it’s no longer blocking
the unallocated space. Disk Management doesn’t provide an obvious way to move the
Recovery Partition, but it can be done without wiping and reformatting the disk.
There are many ways to accomplish this task. A recommended approach is described in
the blog post “Moving Windows Recovery Partition Correctly” by Daniel Keer. It provides
a step-by-step procedure for moving the Recovery Partition and resizing the C:\drive. This
procedure does not require the use of third party utilities – it uses utilities already present
in Windows. It also can be done completely on-line once the virtual disk is expanded by
Fusion.

16.13.6. “The data is invalid” message when enabling BitLocker

Attempting to enable BitLocker on the boot disk of a Windows 11 Pro VM can result in
Windows returning an error message that states that “The data is invalid”.
If you encounter this, try clearing the TPM device. Note that you will have to reset your
Windows Hello PIN if you have one configured.
To clear the TPM:

1 In the Windows VM, type + R to open the “Run” dialog.

2 In the “Run” dialog, type tpm.msc and click the “OK” button. This will open the
TPM Management MSC plug-in application.
3 In TPM Management, select the “Clear TPM“ option.

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 4 In the “Clear TPM“ dialog that appears, click the “Restart“ button.

The VM will reboot. Sign into the VM (and reset your Windows Hello PIN if necessary).
You should then be able to enable BitLocker encryption for your virtual boot drive.

16.13.7. “PC does not meet minimum requirements” when enrolling for Windows
Insider

When using Settings Windows Update Windows Insider Program in the VM to enroll for the
Windows Insider Program, you may encounter the message in Figure 16.9 and the VM is
unable to be enrolled.

Figure 16.9: Can’t enroll VM in Windows Insider Program

This message typically appears in a Windows 11 ARM VM that’s running on Fusion 13.5.2
or earlier.
If you encounter this issue, upgrade to Fusion 13.6 and macOS Sequoia. This will allow
the VM to be enrolled in the Windows Insider Program.
If you need to run an Insider Preview release of Windows 11 ARM, see Section 16.12:
Running Windows Insider Preview builds.

16.13.8. Microsoft Store issues in a new VM

Normally the Microsoft Store app will be automatically downloaded and installed for you
by Windows the first time that you open it. Occasionally, the app may not exist in a newly
installed VM, or it may crash if you try to start it. If this happens, try this procedure to
manually install the Microsoft Store app:
1 Open a Windows command prompt as administrator.
2 Execute the following command:

_ Windows command

C:> wsreset -i

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 3 Wait for the Microsoft Store to install. This may take a while (longer than you might
expect), so please be patient. Up to two items will be downloaded and installed:
• Store Experience Host
• Microsoft Store app
Windows will provide notifications as these components are installed.
When the procedure completes, the Microsoft Store should be installed and able to be
opened.

16.13.9. No folder sharing option in VM Settings

The Folder Sharing option is not available for a Windows 11 ARM VM. Consider one of the
following workarounds to share files between the Mac host and a Windows 11 ARM VM:
• Configure macOS Windows file sharing.
Consult macOS Help – found in the Finder’s Help menu bar – or Internet resources
for instructions on how to configure macOS Windows file sharing. Enable file sharing
for the folders you wish to access in your VM. This will allow the Windows VM to
access the host via standard Windows SMB file sharing.
This workaround should only be used when connected to a trusted network such as
a home network. The use of macOS file sharing when connected to an untrusted
network – such as public or hotel Wi-Fi – is a security risk. To mitigate this risk,
disable file sharing in macOS when connected to an untrusted network.
• Use Drag and Drop.
For simple file transfers between host and guest, consider dragging and dropping
files between the Mac host and Windows 11 ARM guests. The speed of drag/drop has
been noticeably increased over prior versions of Fusion (even on Intel) and may meet
your needs if they don’t include syncing folders with the host.
• Use a Remote Desktop client.
If using Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise, you can access the VM with a Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP) client such as Microsoft Remote Desktop on the Mac and utilize its
folder redirection capabilities. Consult Windows documentation on how to configure
Windows for remote console access, and your RDP client documentation on how to
enable folder redirection.
• Install Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, or a similar cloud file sharing client in both the
VM and the Mac.
Using cloud file sharing services in a VM allows content to be shared to Macs and
any other platform that supports the service.

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 • Use a network file transfer utility such as WinSCP to transfer files between the
Windows VM and the Mac host.

16.13.10. WSL2/Hyper-V/etc. do not work

WSL2, Hyper-V, and other Windows features that use virtualization technologies don’t
currently work in a Windows 11 ARM VM. There are two reasons for this:

• M1 and M2 hardware do not support nested virtualization at all.

• M3 and M4 hardware running macOS Sequoia and later do support nested virtual-
ization, but Fusion does not currently support it.

WSL1, which does not require Hyper-V features, will work in a Windows 11 ARM VM.

16.13.11. Display issues after upgrading VM

Thanks to @joedec for this tip.

After upgrading a Windows 11 VM to Fusion 13.5 (upgrade of virtual hardware version
and installation of the latest VMware Tools), the console window may go blank or go black
every few seconds. If this happens to you, shut down the VM and open the “Display”
settings for the VM. Make sure that “Shared graphics memory” is set to the recommended
value of 8192 as shown in Figure 16.10.

Figure 16.10: Shared graphics memory setting

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16.13.12. Devices with missing drivers

Windows 11 ARM users will find that two devices in the Device Manager are present but
have no device driver as shown in Figure 16.11. The lack of a driver for these two devices
can be ignored. They will not impact operation of the VM.

Figure 16.11: Installing a new network driver

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 Why those missing devices don’t matter

The Base System Device with a missing driver is the VMware VMCI Bus device.
This device is used in VMware products to support host-to-guest application-level
communication (Vsockets).
VMware currently doesn’t provide a driver for this device on Windows 11 ARM. This
isn’t a problem other than not supporting Vsockets like it does on Intel Macs.
The Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller with a missing driver is a UHCI USB
virtual device that Fusion presents to the virtual machine. Neither VMware nor
Microsoft provide a driver for this device for Windows 11 ARM.
Fusion doesn’t use the UHCI USB controller to pass through USB devices to the VM.
It passes USB devices to the VM using a second virtual USB controller. This second
controller, an XHCI USB controller, is supported by Windows with a standard,
out-of-the-box Microsoft driver.
If you don’t like the clutter of having a device without a driver, the UHCI USB
controller can be disabled by editing the VM’s configuration file and adding the
following line:

usb.uhci.present = "FALSE"

Thanks to @coolryg for the explanation of why this happens.

16.13.13. VM hangs or BSOD

Users have reported instances of either a hung VM or BSOD with an error code of
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION or hang of a VM. The issue is seen with VMware Tools
12.3.0 or later when running certain 3D games or resizing a remote desktop with 3D
acceleration enabled.
This is a known issue with VMware graphics driver. Broadcom KB article 313350 Windows
Arm Virtual Machines encounter either BSOD. . . contains the known workarounds.
VMware states that this will be fixed in a future release.

16.13.14. Poor application graphics performance

Users are reporting that some Windows applications are exhibiting poor graphics perfor-
mance when 3D acceleration is enabled in the VM. Turning off 3D acceleration in the
VM’s settings is a workaround that has been found to help some users.

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A. Glossary

Apple Silicon – Apple’s in-house developed SoC (system on a chip) CPUs based
on the ARM architecture. Apple Silicon chips are used in Macs,
iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, and Apple Watch.
The M1, M2, and M3 CPU chips are Apple Silicon CPUs.
ARM – The CPU architecture used by Apple for its Apple Silicon CPUs.
It is different from and incompatible with Intel/AMD CPU
architectures.
Also refers to the company (Arm Ltd.) that develops the ARM
CPU architectures and licenses them to vendors such as Apple
or Qualcomm that produce ARM CPU chips.
arm64/aarch64 – The ArmV8 64-bit ARM CPU architecture or instruction set.
Incompatible with x86 or x64/x86_64 architectures.
Bridged networking – A virtual network configuration that connects the virtual ma-
chine network directly to a network that the host is using.
There is no isolation of the virtual machine from network traf-
fic.
The IP address for a VM configured for a bridged network will
be a unique address on the same network as the host.
Compare with “NAT networking”.
EOL – Acronym for End of Life. The phase in a software’s lifecycle
where the developer stops development of a software version
and is no longer providing support for it. This usually means
that the developer is no longer providing updates or security
patches for the software.
Emulation – The ability to simulate a different architecture and instruction
set on the current hardware. An example is QEMU - software
that emulates an Intel CPU on Apple Silicon hardware and
allows Intel-based operating system to run. Typically runs em-
ulated CPU instructions more slowly than native instructions.
Compare with ‘Virtualization’.

83
EULA – Acronym for End User License Agreement. EULAs are a le-
gal contract between a software provider and customer. They
specify the rights and restrictions that apply to the use of the
software by the customer.
GA – Acronym for “Generally Available”. GA software versions are
publicly released by the developer to all users and typically
receive full support from the developer.
This contrasts with pre-release versions such as beta, preview,
or development versions which may not be publicly available
to all users and may not receive the same support from the
developer (or any support at all) that GA versions do.
GRUB – Software that manages the early stages of the boot process
for a Linux operating system. It is the de-facto standard sys-
tem bootstrap utility for almost all Linux operating system
distributions.
GRUB is an acronym for ‘GRand Unified Bootloader’ in case
you were wondering.
Guest – A virtual machine that runs under the control of a hypervisor.
Compare with “Host”.
Host – An operating system that runs a hypervisor that permits the
use of virtual machines. Example: A Mac that is running
VMware Fusion is considered the host.
Compare with “Guest”.
Hypervisor – A hypervisor is a type of computer software, firmware or hard-
ware that creates and runs virtual machines. The hypervisor
presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating
platform and manages the execution of the guest operating sys-
tems. Unlike an emulator, the guest executes most instructions
on the native hardware.
Credit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor

ISO – Colloquial term for an industry-standard, cross-platform disk

image format that is typically used for the distribution and
installation of software such as operating systems.
The term is derived from the ISO 9660 international standard
that describes the format of the disk image.

84
KB article – Acronym for “Knowledge Base” article or tech note.
Kernel – The kernel is a computer program at the core of a computer’s
operating system and generally has complete control over ev-
erything in the system. It is the portion of the operating system
code that is always resident in the computer’s memory and
facilitates interactions between hardware and software compo-
nents.
The term “kernel” is also used in Linux environments to refer
to the portion of the Linux operating system that is loaded into
the computer’s memory by the boot loader.
Credit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(operating_system)

M1, M2, and M3 – Apple Silicon CPU chips used by Apple in Macs beginning in
late 2020.
NAT networking – A virtual network adapter configuration that creates a unique
localized network that’s isolated from the host’s network. This
is like what you would find on a home wireless router to isolate
you from a broadband provider’s network.
The IP address for a VM connected to a bridged network will
be on a different network than the host. A NAT firewall imple-
mented by Fusion routes network traffic from virtual machines
running within the NAT network to the host’s configured net-
work.
Also known as “Shared with my Mac” in the Fusion virtual
machine network adapter configuration.
Compare to “Bridged networking”.
Nested virtualization – The ability to run a hypervisor application in a virtual ma-
chine, which in turn allows virtual machines to run using that
hypervisor inside the virtual machine
Thinking of the film “Inception” may help you understand this
concept. Or the “gangster movie within a movie” from “Home
Alone”.
OOBE – Acronym for Out-Of-Box-Experience. In Windows systems,
the Out-Of-Box-Experience is the part of the Windows Setup
process appears the first time that Windows is started from the
hard drive. It completes a number of post-installation tasks

85
 such as country/region selection, keyboard configuration, user
creation, and desktop environment configuration.
open-vm-tools – Open source versions of VMware’s in-guest hypervisor tools for
Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. open-vm-tools
are created and maintained by VMware and donated to the
open source community.
open-vm-tools packages are available in most Linux distribu-
tions (including arm64 versions) through their repositories.
They are the preferred tools for Linux guests running under
VMware products.
See “VMware Tools”.
.ova/.ovf – A vendor-neutral virtual machine interchange format. Allows
a virtual machine to be more easily transported from one virtu-
alization product to another while retaining important settings
and configuration.
Repository/Repo – A storage location for software packages maintained by an
operating system’s vendor. Package managers in Linux dis-
tributions typically use on-line repositories to install and/or
update software on systems.
Credit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_repository

Virtualization – The ability to share hardware resources of a computer to run

additional operating system environments of the same CPU
architecture. Typically runs most CPU instructions at native
CPU speed.
See “Hypervisor”.
Compare with “Emulation”.
VM – Acronym for virtual machine or guest.
VHDX – The file format used by Microsoft Hyper-V for its virtual disk
files. Can be converted for use under Fusion.
Compare with “VMDK”.
VMDK – The file format used by VMware hypervisor products for their
virtual disk files.
Compare with “VHDX”.

86
VMware SVGA 3D – The virtual graphics adapter that is presented to virtual ma-
chines by VMware hypervisors.
Virtual machines do not have direct access to a host’s graphics
card. The VMware SVGA 3D adapter provides a graphics dis-
play to the virtual machine that can be shared with the host’s
graphics adapter.
VMware Tools – Proprietary versions of VMware’s in-guest hypervisor integra-
tion tools provided directly by VMware for Windows and older
x86/x64 Linux distributions that do not support open-vm-tools.
See “open-vm-tools”.
vmwgfx – The Linux kernel device driver that provides support for the
VMware SVGA 3D virtual graphics adapter.
See “VMWare SVGA 3D”’.
Windows 11 ARM – The version of Windows 11 that runs on ARM architecture PCs.
It is the Windows version that is used in Microsoft Surface
devices with Microsoft SQ CPU chips and OEM devices that
use Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs such as those from Lenovo,
HP, Acer, and Samsung.
x64/x86_64 – The 64-bit Intel/AMD CPU architecture or instruction set. In-
compatible with arm64/aarch64 architectures.
x86 – The 32-bit Intel/AMD CPU architecture or instruction set. In-
compatible with arm64/aarch64 architectures.

87
B. Windows 11 Installation Resources

Installing Windows 11 from ISO installation media (either Intel or ARM versions) is a
system administration task that is outside the scope of the Companion Guide1 .
If you are not familiar with installing Windows from Microsoft ISO media, here are some
“how to” resources that can assist you. Most of these are geared toward Intel versions of
Windows, but the information can be used for Windows 11 ARM.
How to install Windows 11 from USB, DVD or ISO from digitalcitizen.life.
How to install and download Windows 11 on your PC from digitaltrends.com (Skip to the
section on “How to clean install with Windows 11 Installation Media”).
How to Download a Windows 11 ISO File and Do a Clean Install from tomshardware.com
(Skip to the section “Installing Windows 11 on the Target PC”).

1
Remember the disclaimer at the beginning of the guide that some system administration skills are required?

88
Acknowledgements

The content of the Companion Guide is the work of the many Fusion community members
who have contributed these valuable tips. Many thanks go out to those whose efforts make
it possible. Apologies to anyone whom I may have missed.
Special thanks go out to:

@Mikero — (a.k.a. Michael Roy, VMware Product Marketing Engineer)

for keeping watch over the Discussions forum.
@ColoradoMarmot — for comments and experiences on using prior versions of
the Tech Preview, a heads-up on running multiple virtual-
ization products at the same time.
@palter — for noting that UTM 4.0 now enables virtualization of
macOS Monterey and Ventura.
@JamesRule — for reporting issues with resizing Kali Linux windows.
@adf43r3rfe — for reporting issues in booting a newly installed Kali Linux
VM.
@mvreijn — for pointing out an omission of instructions for installing
openSUSE Leap.
@toce — for pointing out an error in earlier versions of the com-
mands used to install a Debian backport kernel that results
in installation failures.
@treee — for pointing out inaccuracies in revision 2 of this document
and suggesting changes for clarity.
@itris666 — for suggesting that the Windows Insider VHDX conversion
procedures be returned to the Companion.
@gnttz79xro — for a solution to stuttering sound on Linux virtual ma-
chines.
@maxmori — for another solution for stuttering sound on Linux virtual
machines.
@neanti — for a procedure to manually convert a Parallels VM to
Fusion.

89
@joedec — for solution to Windows 11 screen flickering/black display
problem.
@gringley — for reporting the availability of updated VMware Tools that
address two security issues.
@coolryg — for the explanation of driver-less devices in Windows 11
ARM VMs.
@parhom and @brad-x — for the workaround to GNOME 46 display issues when 3D
is enabled.

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