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Same here: I was a Fusion user while I had Intel Macs, switched to M1 and Parallels because of their Windows support and now I’ll be more than happy to jump back to VMware this year. I am already running the new Tech Preview and it works just fine for what I need. I won't be renewing my Parallels subscription which is due in October.
How did you install the VMware tools? I can’t figure out how to install it beside the network etc with the script for arm64 install.
 
It should be the same, in the bottom it runs on the same hypervisor so the performance should be the same.

I believe neither Parallels nor VMware use Apple's Virtualization (VirtIO, etc.) framework, though — so while CPU perf will be the same, I/O perf won't.
 
I too was trying to figure out to to convert the VHDX file to a VMDK file or another format that VMware Fusion can read.

Any help would be appreciated.

If you have HomeBrew:

brew install qemu
qemu-img convert -p -O vmdk Windows11.VHDX Windows11.vmdk
 
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It should be the same, in the bottom it runs on the same hypervisor so the performance should be the same.
This was never the case on intel macs running Windows, parallals frequently had WAY better game performance than VMware.
 
Same here: I was a Fusion user while I had Intel Macs, switched to M1 and Parallels because of their Windows support and now I’ll be more than happy to jump back to VMware this year. I am already running the new Tech Preview and it works just fine for what I need. I won't be renewing my Parallels subscription which is due in October.
Thirded, I was very dissapointed withe vmware when they basically were like "ARM? No way man, we arent touching that", glad they reconsidered
 
How did you install the VMware tools? I can’t figure out how to install it beside the network etc with the script for arm64 install.
The full VMware Tools don’t work yet. I just installed the provided network and graphics drivers using PowerShell as described in the readme file and the user guide.
 
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It hasn't stolen Wine's popularity.
Valve has actively been injecting money into Wine and contributing to it. And it shows: since they started with the project, game compatibility has been growing exponentially, with many games running "out of the box".

Just compare this to the compatibility of corporate apps, which hasn't seen an investment as big. By comparison, it has been stale for years.

You can still download a Wine fork that runs games (Wine-proton; Wine-GE), but your experience will not be as smooth.
That sounds like what I'm saying. Most people who used to run games on Wine are now running games on Proton, cause it works way better. It's based on Wine, but it's not the same.

Games on regular Wine don't work out of the box. Even Steam itself doesn't; you have to pass in the game-list-only flag. I used to play games in Wine somewhat reliably, and now whatever I try is usually unplayable. Things used to be better, and when they weren't, there used to be more Linux users around on forums finding workarounds. It's fine, I'm too old for games now anyway.
 
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Virtualization ≠ Emulation.

VMware Fusion is software for virtualizing and emulating, there is a difference.
I think you have a typo here; I assume you meant to write that "...Fusion is software for virtualizing and not emulating..."
 
Fedora isn't based on Red Hat. Red Hat is based on Fedora.

Fedora is the bleeding-edge testing distro that they use as a base for RHEL. CentOS is now their rolling-release pre-RHEL distro.

If you want a distro that's based on Red Hat, you need Rocky Linux.
Or you can just sign up for RHEL for free and run RHEL


I've been running v9 on my 2020 M1 MBP for a few weeks, and it works great. Although I prefer Fedora.
 
It should be the same, in the bottom it runs on the same hypervisor so the performance should be the same.
As I understand it, the Apple Hypervisor Kit only does the basics, so underlying CPU & I/O performance should be similar between VMWare, Parallels, UTM and others, but how well they implement things like graphics acceleration and MacOS integration could vary. Parallels has usually been a bit ahead of the game on speed & integration, with VMWare playing close catch-up & arguably being a bit more stable (and better license terms for the Pro version).
 
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As I understand it, the Apple Hypervisor Kit only does the basics, so underlying CPU & I/O performance should be similar between VMWare, Parallels, UTM and others, but how well they implement things like graphics acceleration and MacOS integration could vary. Parallels has usually been a bit ahead of the game on speed & integration, with VMWare playing close catch-up & arguably being a bit more stable (and better license terms for the Pro version).

Sort of — macOS 10.10 Yosemite introduced Hypervisor.framework, and that's mostly "just" the CPU part of virtualization. Parallels, VMware, etc. used to have their own hypervisor each, but I believe ARM Macs (maybe also Intel Macs at this point) mandate that you use Apple's implementation, so CPU performance will indeed be identical.

But then years later, macOS 11.0 Big Sur introduced Virtualization.framework, which adds stuff like virtual networking, storage, graphics, clipboard sharing, etc., so much so that Apple even provides sample code for writing your own VM app. (Also, if you virtualize Linux, you can pass through Rosetta 2 into Linux, letting you run an x86 Linux binary inside the Linux VM through the host macOS's Rosetta.)

But, not for Windows. And, vice versa, Parallels doesn't really offer that stuff for macOS. And on Windows, VMware integration and especially Parallels integration goes deeper, with things like file drag & drop, trackpad gestures, etc.

It seems, though, that Apple is on a path to make virtualized macOS and Linux nicer and nicer, and Parallels and VMware may ultimately decide to use more and more of Apple's built-in stuff and figure out what value they can add on top.
 
I had to downgrade from M1 Air to Macbook Pro 16" 2019 to do this and virtualbox
That MacBook Pro is a good desktop replacement.

When I purchased my iMac M1, I also purchased a stock iMac 2020 with the 16 GB GPU and dedicated for Virtual Machines and Intel Docker images and Windows 10 gaming in Bootcamp. If I just was a YouTuber using Final Cut Pro and other video tools, Apple Silicon is a no brainer. The migration has me worried when Intel iMacs are classified as Vintage and I have to buy hardware separate platforms. Intel Macs were the best because you can run everything and my iMac even beats out my dedicated Digital Storm tower from 2015 with a beefy overclocked after market 980 TI Nvidia card. A modern GPU will cost as much as the iMac's $2,500 cost.

M1 works with universal Windows binaries good but Windows 11 has some display issues in a VM it doesn't solve commercial Linux binaries for Intel. In 2025, I am thinking of switching to System76 to replace my iMac for virtual machines and possibly gaming using Wine or Steam.
 
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