Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

VMware Fusion Pro 13 Now Freely Available for Personal Use

Cmon shamone official gimme download links without this Broadcorn log in. I lost my back up Fusion installer. I want to install the last version of Ubuntu that supported OS9 Classic skin.
 
  • Like
Reactions: max2
izzy0242mr said:
Got it, sorry, misread you as trying to find the Win11 ARM ISO.
Click to expand...
i do appreciate the help; the issue is that Broadcom absolutely royally screwed things up, INCLUDING for corp customers (we have a bunch of VDI/ESXi/vSphere/whatever).
Download links across the board are broken, I have a dozen windows spawning on their bass-ackwards website, support site is from 1999, and my account is awaiting verification from someone in a cesspool boiler room.
 
Under Fusion Pro 13, what is the maximum amount of RAM that we can assign to a Windows virtual machine? Can't find such information.
 
lindros2 said:
i do appreciate the help; the issue is that Broadcom absolutely royally screwed things up, INCLUDING for corp customers (we have a bunch of VDI/ESXi/vSphere/whatever).
Download links across the board are broken, I have a dozen windows spawning on their bass-ackwards website, support site is from 1999, and my account is awaiting verification from someone in a cesspool boiler room.
Click to expand...
I hadn't visited the site since the transition…and hot damn are you right, that site is steaming *****. VMWare's wasn't amazing either, but this is definitely loads worse.

I have VMWare Player (regular) 13.5 or whatever the latest is and I got turned off about upgrading after visiting their website. Screwing over corporate customers seems like a massive dumb move here for them.
 
neuropsychguy said:
Links are hard to find, to put it mildly. If you have a Broadcom account and are logged in, you can <snip>
Click to expand...
Thanks for the links. Last night after having created an account, I couldn't download them. Today using your links, same, which I think brought me to the same page results in the same. Mouse over the download link, and it says Screening Required. l guess I will continue to give Parallels my money, which I have no problem doing, I just would like to evaluate this free option for my personal use.

Having dealt with Broadcom at work, I think I'll be happier with Parallels. I'm waiting on them for some bug fixes to their issues/regressions; they told me the fix is coming in late April or early May, but that has come and gone. Broadcom's personal-use good deed has fallen on deaf ears.
 
terraphantm said:
Anybody else stuck at "Account verification pending" ?
Click to expand...
Yup. After 36 hours of pending status, I set up a new support account at Broadcom instead of trying to use my migrated VMware account. Download worked immediately. Then I realized the download was no different than the VMware Fusion Player v13.5.2 that I already had. It turns out that all I really had to do was wipe out my VMware Fusion Player license to activate Pro. Even the free Player had a license key. It’s weird that removing a license key gave me Pro capabilities.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cool11
Do I need any kind of registration or account in order to install the dmg?
 
Thank you :)

After 3 days of waiting for account approval, the license removal trick worked immediately.
 
Stella said:
VMWare used to be free in the past too. Broadcom have screwed up their acquisition of VMWare, losing trust of VMWare's clients.

Parrellels is garbage.. IMO. I used to buy it yearly but got expensive for what I needed it for.

It's great to see VMWare free again, especially since Virtual Box is still in developer preview for Apple Silicon and development at snails pace.
Click to expand...
How is Parallels garbage and how is VMWare better? I've been runnig Windows and betas of macOS through Parallels since 2012 and never had an issue. Also loving the token fee they demand (~$65/y) - but if VMWare is somehow even better I'd happily make the switch...
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
Reactions: Will Tisdale 🎗 and gank41
rmariboe said:
How is Parallels garbage and how is VMWare better? I've been runnig Windows and betas of macOS through Parallels since 2012 and never had an issue. Also loving the token fee they demand (~$65/y) - but if VMWare is somehow even better I'd happily make the switch...
Click to expand...
Historically, Parallels had been very buggy with crashes, etc. VMware was what developers and other IT professionals used for real work (mostly for Linux as opposed to Winblows). VMware Fusion was much more reliable. But, over time, VMware Fusion became increasingly neglected while Parallels (a smaller, more focused company) product became much more solid and polished. If my VMware Fusion 13 Pro stopped working properly after updating to a new MacOS version (will likely happen) I would license Parallels (at a cost) rather than wait for Broadcom to release a new version of Fusion (which might never happen).
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
Reactions: Will Tisdale 🎗, rmariboe and gank41
I've been using VMWare Fusion Player for a few months now. You're supposed to uninstall it completely to be able to install Fusion Pro. Just to be sure: I'll be able to start my existing virtual machines with Fusion Pro, right?
________
EDIT: Right! I've upgraded successfully.
 
Last edited:
An-apple-a-day said:
Historically, Parallels had been very buggy with crashes, etc. VMware was what developers and other IT professionals used for real work (mostly for Linux as opposed to Winblows). VMware Fusion was much more reliable. But, over time, VMware Fusion became increasingly neglected while Parallels (a smaller, more focused company) product became much more solid and polished. If my VMware Fusion 13 Pro stopped working properly after updating to a new MacOS version (will likely happen) I would license Parallels (at a cost) rather than wait for Broadcom to release a new version of Fusion (which might never happen).
Click to expand...
Makes sense :)
Back in 2007, the hosting provider I was working for was using the docker like, Ukrainian (I think) based Virtuoso/Virtuozzo (I don't recall the exact spelling) for their Linux hosts. Virtuos/zzo or a group of developers from the company later branched out and became Parallels (with the Virtuoso brand apparently since reemerging in relation to VMWare - and various research projects and other virtualization products with similar names like "Virtuozzo").
Nostalgia definitely had a part in my decision to go with Parallels instead of VMWare back in the day :)
 
After upgrading my license to the Fusion Pro license, I now see a watermark in the lower left corner of the screen that says, "Activate Windows, Go to Settings to activate Windows." When I've tried to do this, I get the response that I'm not running Windows 11, so I cannot activate Windows. I am running Windows 11 64-bit ARM. Can someone please tell me how to activate Windows and/or get rid of this nag? Thanks in advance.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: Will Tisdale 🎗
rmariboe said:
Nostalgia definitely had a part in my decision to go with Parallels instead of VMWare back in the day :)
Click to expand...
Speaking of nostalgia... I'm clearly too old for this crowd. 👴 For those of you who can remember this far back: In the pre-Intel era (actually, the very beginning of the PPC era), I used a product called Soft PC and its sister product SoftWindows (which was really just SoftPC bundled with a copy of Windows).

I'm pretty sure that predates any incarnation of Parallels or VMWare -- though, I know nothing at all about this Virtuoso product you mention.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rmariboe and An-apple-a-day
rmariboe said:
How is Parallels garbage and how is VMWare better? I've been runnig Windows and betas of macOS through Parallels since 2012 and never had an issue. Also loving the token fee they demand (~$65/y) - but if VMWare is somehow even better I'd happily make the switch...
Click to expand...
It's my personal opinion - for what I need, VMWare when free is the better choice. I don't need to spend $$ per year keeping up with Mac OS releases - that without may break stuff, and I don't need graphic acceleration etc.

YMMV.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rmariboe, trusso, An-apple-a-day and 1 other person
Tried a Windows 7 install on VMWare Workstation and it was a sluggish disaster. It seems this old trusty OS is not getting any acceleration and runs super slow.

On the Mac side I installed Win 11 and Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish in Fusion and they run smooth. I gave them both 12 cores and 16GBs ram. Ubuntu scores 13% higher than Win 11 in Geekbench.
 
I'm going through hell with this update. I finally managed to download 13.5.2, checked "Use VMWare Fusion Pro for personal use", then the installer says "Thank you for using VMware Fusion 13 Professional", then when I click "Done" it just beachballs forever. If I force quit and reopen it just beachballs again. Anyone have any clue?

I had a Windows ARM VM working OK under VMWare Player and now I'm dead in the water.

After about 10 minutes of beachballing it suddenly starting working. Never mind.
 
Stella said:
It's my personal opinion - for what I need, VMWare when free is the better choice. I don't need to spend $$ per year keeping up with Mac OS releases - that without may break stuff, and I don't need graphic acceleration etc.

YMMV.
Click to expand...
I prefer Parallels myself, but thank you for making this point. Everyone has different needs and preferences, we shouldn’t be shouting at each other over something as silly as software. And I plan to give VMWare a try again after this announcement.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rmariboe
purplerainpurplerain said:
Cmon shamone official gimme download links without this Broadcorn log in. I lost my back up Fusion installer. I want to install the last version of Ubuntu that supported OS9 Classic skin.
Click to expand...

Can't find an OS 9 desktop. There is GNUStep for Debian though. Works fine on the ARM bistro.

1717176357327.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: purplerainpurplerain
questionwonder said:
How would this compare to playing it on a Windows gaming laptop?
Click to expand...

The obvious would be saving significant space on the SSD. Having a 200GB+ game on the cloud is a huge boost in storage.

As far as performance, It all depends on the gaming laptop specs. Any 4000 series laptop can play COD with 60+ FPS with DLSS at 1080/1440p.

If you have the laptop powerful enough, local gaming is still king.

With an 80 upload/80 Download, I can play COD at 4K with GeForce Now.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: Will Tisdale 🎗
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back