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

Jordan Klein said:
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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That $89 price requires that you've paid for the commercial Player license, so it's not a discount for users of the free player.
 
chrfr said:
That $89 price requires that you've paid for the commercial Player license, so it's not a discount for users of the free player.
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Ah, that makes sense. I thought maybe Dell/VMware made a mistake and was inadvertently offering an additional $10 discount to those paying attention. Too bad.

Either way, In can't upgrade right now, as I'm still running Mojave and don't plan on running Catalina for now, mainly due to loss of 32-bit support and various bugs that still seem to be around from previous forum postings.
 
Jordan Klein said:
Ah, that makes sense. I thought maybe Dell/VMware made a mistake and was inadvertently offering an additional $10 discount to those paying attention. Too bad.
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Yeah, I tried that with the free license code from the version 12 Player, but the serial wasn't valid for upgrade.
 
Normmm said:
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.
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We do not really know if Rosetta 2 is any faster than Windows x86 emulation, since we only have seen Rosetta 2 doing static translation not JIT. Static translations in supposed to be faster than JIT.
Apple said, Rosetta 2 can also do JIT, but we have not seen a benchmark, where Rosetta 2 is doing JIT.
That having said, Microsofts x86 JIT in Windows on ARM is probably the fastest JIT solution available - much faster than QEMU for example.
To give you some numbers, Microsoft JIT is roughly 50% native speed while Rosetta 2 static translation is about 70% native speed. How fast is Rosetta 2 JIT? We don't know - but certainly below 70% native.
 
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Hey Guys, quick question regarding VMware 12 and Mojave. I have Catalina as my main install, so Fusion 12 Pro is good there. I also have a back up portable install of Mojave I keep around for 32-bit support. I had a copy of Fusion 11.5.1 on that install, and manually downloaded 11.5.6 today so it would be up to date for Mojave. My question is, Fusion still offers 12 as an update, even in Mojave, even though it's not supported. So I was curious if I should have upgraded via the 12 DMG, or did do it correctly. I was mainly asking because usually software is good in telling you it's up to date for a particular OS.

Thanks
 
To track compatibility, check out these 2 tables:
version of HOST OS compatible with: Supported host operating systems
version of GUEST OS supported (can be filtered): VMware Compatibility Guide

For Fusion v12, host is limited to macOS 10.15 and 11.0, and guest is limited to macOS X 10.9-10.15
For those asking, Fusion 11.5.x, host is limited to macOS 10.13*, 10.14, 10.15, and guest is limited to macOS X 10.11-10.15. *only 11.5.0

[automerge]1602128049[/automerge]
BTW, if you have trouble accessing the free download page with blank back, error messages, and the like, try clearing your cache. That worked for me.
 
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I now have my free v12 license. Anyone know how to get a free copy of 11.5.x (or earlier)? I am seeing conflicting info about this. Once place I read it was possible to use the v12 license to register v11.5. Another place said it does not work. Another said you can get free downgrades with v12 license, yet another said you cannot.

Anyone have a definitive answer to this? And if you can get an older version, how....where do you download and what license can be used or how to obtain the license?
 
smayer97 said:
I now have my free v12 license. Anyone know how to get a free copy of 11.5.x (or earlier)? I am seeing conflicting info about this. Once place I read it was possible to use the v12 license to register v11.5. Another place said it does not work. Another said you can get free downgrades with v12 license, yet another said you cannot.

Anyone have a definitive answer to this? And if you can get an older version, how....where do you download and what license can be used or how to obtain the license?
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So I found this reply in the Fusion forum...https://communities.vmware.com/message/2986116#2986116

So it seems that by design the PAID v12 license should work, save for a possible bug. What about the FREE v12 license?
 
smayer97 said:
I now have my free v12 license. Anyone know how to get a free copy of 11.5.x (or earlier)? I am seeing conflicting info about this. Once place I read it was possible to use the v12 license to register v11.5. Another place said it does not work. Another said you can get free downgrades with v12 license, yet another said you cannot.

Anyone have a definitive answer to this? And if you can get an older version, how....where do you download and what license can be used or how to obtain the license?
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I’m sure it’s only paid licenses. Just because they made a free version available for the new copy, I see no reason they are require to give away the old version.

if so, I’d like a refund for the past few versions!
 
I haven't been able to register for the free non-commercial version. It wants company details. That doesn't make sense for a home non-commercial use.
 
Agreed it does not make sense since they make it mandatory. I simply entered N/A in all the fields. Worked just fine.
 
I just entered 'Personal Use' in the company line. You can put whatever you want.
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Yes, but I asked myself if they might filter for licenses with any value in the ampany field.

It just confirms, how bad the website is and I always wonder, if someone in those companies tries out these forms... I hope, they develop the software more carefully...
 
I emailed support and they granted a license. I was reading through their community forum and they say there are problems with the website that haven't been resolved yet.
 
Nice, just talked to support - they won't allow downgrades unless you buy it and have also disabled downgrading on all previous versions. Which is rubbish, tbh.
 
nylon said:
Bottom left of the webpage 'Fusion 12 Player'. Register for a free personal use license. The license key you receive is perpetual, not trial. Not for 30 days. I have it up and running.
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Is it faster or slower than Fusion 11?

I ask mainly because I just had to move from Photoshop CS5 to Elements, and it is a PIG.
 
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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You are probably aware that VMWare Fusion now forces the new HyperVisor on Big Sur, while staying with KEXTs in Catalina. This is a problem on some "unsupported" hardware like cMP 5,1. It is running great with upgraded video and BLE/WiFI. Its older CPUs do not support XSAVE.
Parallels 16 installed with the old KEXTs and works fine.
It would be nice if knowledgeable users could override this behavior with a VMX property as you did with other legacy features in the past.
I have been using VMware stuff since Workstation beta1 on Windows. But right now I am switching to Parallels 16.
Sad to leave. But disabling one machine means I cannot use it on all of them, since I have a whole set of VMs shared among multiple setups - Windows back to XP and OS X back to Tiger.
 
allpar said:
Is it faster or slower than Fusion 11?

I ask mainly because I just had to move from Photoshop CS5 to Elements, and it is a PIG.
Click to expand...

I don't use those apps so can't advise. However, Fusion 12 is noticeably quicker and more stable for me on most tasks.
 
nylon said:
I don't use those apps so can't advise. However, Fusion 12 is noticeably quicker and more stable for me on most tasks.
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Sorry, the two things were unrelated. Some software gets slower with every version. Wanted to make sure Fusion would give me a speed boost, because I am going to spend much more time in virtualization now...
 
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
Click to expand...

Quick question: according to the docs, neither 11.5 nor 12 support OS 10.6 as a guest... but I know 11.5 does, even with the tools. So... does 12 support OS 10.6 as a guest?
 
allpar said:
Quick question: according to the docs, neither 11.5 nor 12 support OS 10.6 as a guest... but I know 11.5 does, even with the tools. So... does 12 support OS 10.6 as a guest?
Click to expand...

Thinking that it did not according to the VMWare documentation, I pursued a Nested implementation. In asking about that I asked the same question and received the following reply:

Broadcom Community - VMTN, Mainframe, Symantec, Carbon Black

Broadcom Community - VMTN, Mainframe, Symantec, Carbon Black
communities.vmware.com

In other words, yes, OS 10.6 is supported and nesting is not needed.

P.S. I wish VMWare would update their documentation.
 
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