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VMware Fusion 12 Now Available With macOS Big Sur Support and More

mikeroySoft said:
Yah, that's a typo... I'm working with the backend... some of the standard boilerplate stuff snuck through in a late edit... it is 100% a perpetual license (the product itself reflects that).

Source: I'm the product manager
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Is there any chance we could get the ability to downgrade licenses back? I'm pretty bummed that was removed, it was super nice on old systems! It's also why I initially switched to VMWare in the first place, Parallels doesn't let you get keys for old versions.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Is there any chance we could get the ability to downgrade licenses back? I'm pretty bummed that was removed, it was super nice on old systems! It's also why I initially switched to VMWare in the first place, Parallels doesn't let you get keys for old versions.
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Yeah, where did that go? It's gone on my purchased licenses as well, along with the ability to re-upgrade them!

@mikeroySoft - looks like a bug in the licensing portal there.
 
I've been a Fusion user since 2008 and paying to upgrade every year - but glad to see it's free now for widespread adoption. I've been using it over the years to run XP and Win10 VMs - moving the last few years to running multiple Mac OSX VMs.

I have a very powerful 2013 iMac that cannot run Big Sur. Can I install Fusion Player 12 on Catalina and run a Big Sur VM using this?
 
johnny9999 said:
I've been a Fusion user since 2008 and paying to upgrade every year - but glad to see it's free now for widespread adoption. I've been using it over the years to run XP and Win10 VMs - moving the last few years to running multiple Mac OSX VMs.

I have a very powerful 2013 iMac that cannot run Big Sur. Can I install Fusion Player 12 on Catalina and run a Big Sur VM using this?
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You may want to check out dosdude1's awesome patcher to avoid virtualisation and just run Big Sur: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-11-big-sur-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/
Looks like Wifi won't work, but hopefully that'll get sorted soon.
 
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I've been testing Fusion 12 and I have to say the performance is so much better than 11 - a lot of my issues that I was having have been resolved. Resolved to the point my lab stuff may now be back on Fusion; makes porting to its big brother far easier and reliable. They've done a good job from what I can see.

Anyway, you can see my initial testing/thoughts here VMWare Fusion 12 Performance - First Look! should anyone be interested.
 
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VMWares Website is probably in the "worst website of the year" competition...

After logging in with my account I was able to download Fusion 12, but I ma not able to get the license key for the free version. After hitting the button on the startup dialog I am redirected to the VMWare website, but the key id displayed nowhere, I can only see the key for Fusion 11.

An other problem might be, that VMWare insists on entering company informations, there is no why to indicate, that I am just a private user. I entered "No company" and "other" in all places information was required, but I am wondering if I can get the free version when any company information is entered.

For a short time I just thought about buying the Pro version update, just to spare the hassle. But as I do not need Fusion right now I will try it again in a few days.
 
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Alwis said:
VMWares Website is probably in the "worst website of the year" competition...

After logging in with my account I was able to download Fusion 12, but I ma not able to get the license key for the free version. After hitting the button on the startup dialog I am redirected to the VMWare website, but the key id displayed nowhere, I can only see the key for Fusion 11.

An other problem might be, that VMWare insists on entering company informations, there is no why to indicate, that I am just a private user. I entered "No company" and "other" in all places information was required, but I am wondering if I can get the free version when any company information is entered.

For a short time I just thought about buying the Pro version update, just to spare the hassle. But as I do not need Fusion right now I will try it again in a few days.
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Yes, worst experience I had since ages, I can't even download the Software, yesterday I again and again got pages for Windows Software.
I registered 6 years ago, forgot about it, I threw away my email (Yahoo) address which I registered with years ago so couldn't get email on that one, I then registered a new User and activated, each and every time I got onto another page saying I have to activate the account, wtf, I just did, even sending a new link did not work, got no email.
Extremely poor website, you can't even find Mac Software, tried searching yesterday, the page was loading..loading and even longer loading but never showed any results, today it did but no Mac software.

If their Software is the same I have little trust in it.
 
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I'd been thinking about buying either Fusion or Parallels, and this price ($0) made up my mind for me. After downloading and starting the installation, I clicked "Get a free license key" for home use. The result was a frozen web page at vmware.com, and since then, I've not been able to load any VMware page. Did the demand crash their web server?
 
bv1507 said:
I'd been thinking about buying either Fusion or Parallels, and this price ($0) made up my mind for me. After downloading and starting the installation, I clicked "Get a free license key" for home use. The result was a frozen web page at vmware.com, and since then, I've not been able to load any VMware page. Did the demand crash their web server?
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Doubt it, it's just a very poor website/experience overall.
 
bobnugget said:
You may want to check out dosdude1's awesome patcher to avoid virtualisation and just run Big Sur: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-11-big-sur-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/
Looks like Wifi won't work, but hopefully that'll get sorted soon.
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Hi thanks for this. I'd already seen it and a bit nervous running a patched system as my main production machine - never know what 'point' releases will ever break it. But it's certainly something to think about.

Meanwhile, I'd still be interested if anyone knows the answer - can Fusion run Big Sur as a VM on Catalina?

Before someone says 'try it' - that's a large ask as it means burning my Mojave install to the ground and installing Catalina (so that I can run Fusion 12). Something I'm very happy to do if it opens up more virtualisation possibilities, but if the answer is no then I'll probably stick with Mojave :)

So just wondered if anyone has tried it in advance.

Thanks again!
 
Nugget said:
Yes, I've been doing all my Big Sur testing exactly this way. Worked in Fusion 11 and still works in Fusion 12.
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Thanks - that sounds very promising. I wonder if the same applies for 'unsupported Macs'. I'd assume yes, as it's virtualised.

Didn't realise it worked in Fusion 11, so I might try it sooner rather than later on my existing Mojave install.

Now we just need Apple to release it. Assumed it would have been today....
 
Every time I think about dumping VMware on these upgrades, I download and install Virtualbox, then uninstall it and then I ponder Parallels but look at my current list of subscription software. Each of these virtualization packages have their place, but in the end it comes down to my time invested throughout the coming year or so of work. I then ponder how much time do I want to make it work or expect it to work. Then I just upgrade my VMNware license. I hate feeling like every year or two I have to pony up another sum of cash to keep up with the latest. But, I chose this path and the simplest answer is get off the upgrade train or stay on it and pay up if I value my time.

Just upgraded from 11 Pro to 12 Pro for $99. No hassle from the company I get my software from and it installed right over the top of the 11 install. All set for Big Sur.

Maybe before the next cycle I will consider other options.
 
OK, so I've now tried running a Big Sur (Beta) VM running on Fusion 11.5.6 / Mojave 10.14.6. This was on my unsupported iMac 2013. It works! So as other people have indicated, no reason that Big Sur wont run on Fusion 12 / Catalina too.

This opens up old wounds why I can't run Big Sur (unpatched) on my fully maxed-out 2013 iMac which is far more powerful than my base model 2014 MacBook Air.

But don't want to derail this thread with that ;)

In short, VMWare Fusion is amazing!
 
I agree that VMware's site is a mess. I logged in, but it insists that I pay for an upgrade. I can't find any free version of the new Player.

EDIT: Oh duh! I followed the link at the beginning of this thread. I'm all set now.
 
Malus120 said:
No. I'll admit I exaggerated by saying it'll only run MS Office but Windows on ARM is still very much limited. While it has made good strides in emulating the older 32 bit x86 ISA, x86-64, the standard for high performance apps for the past 15 years is still not supported and from what I understand performance even for 32 bit apps is nowhere near Rosetta 2 on MacOS. Even if we assume X86-64 support comes in 2021, the performance of virtualized Windows ARM emulating x86 is likely to be insufficient or at the very least unsatisfactory for many people used to virtualization on Intel Macs.

The point I wanted to make isn't that Windows will never, in any form, run on Apple Silicon Macs (It'll run in some form at some point.) It was that people need to get it into their heads that the era of virtualization & bootcamp as easy, low hassle, high performance solutions for non Mac apps is ending, and while I'm sure (hope) Apple Silicon will have its upsides, this isn't going to be one of them.
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There's no reason MS performance emulating x86 on ARM shouldn't eventually be comparable to Rosetta 2. The way they translate x86-32 on first execution and cache translations is just like Rosetta 2, including system calls going to native ARM code. It really depends on how serious MS is about supporting full Windows on ARM. With fast hardware and good translation, most occasional use of Windows on ARM should be fine.
 
Does anyone know if Fusion 12 can be run alongside 11.5?

I know that typically a new version of Fusion updates existing VMs so they won't run in order versions of Fusion, but as long as both 12 and 11.5 can be installed at the same time, I can just make a copy of an existing VM so I can play around with 12 to see how well/poorly it works for me.
 
I don't believe you can install both at the same time, but what you can do is use your 11.x VM in 12, just make sure you don't upgrade the hypervisor version otherwise it will no longer work with 11.x.

Or just take a copy of it on 11?

OR...If you're being silly ;-) Enable hypervisor in the VM, install Catalina, then install Fusion 12, then install a VM. What could possibly go wrong.
 
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Has anyone noticed that if you upgrade your VMware Fusion Pro (v10 or newer) license to VMware Fusion Pro 12, it costs $99 and if you select to upgrade from the free VMware Fusion Player to Pro, it costs $89?

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