• apple silicon,  mac,  parallels,  virtualization,  vmware

    VMware Fusion 2H22 Technical Preview Gains Driver Support for Windows 11 VMs on Apple Silicon Macs

    Mac Studio running Windows 11 on VMware Fusion, credit: VMware

    VMware, the desktop and server virtualization company, has finally caught up with their competitor, Parallels, and released VMware Fusion with VMware Tools support for Windows 11 late last month.

    The July 28 VMware Fusion 22H2 Tech Preview was announced by Michael Roy on the Fusion blog. Now, Mac users with either an M1 or M2 Apple Silicon-based Mac can run Windows 11. Sort of.

    First, the good news. With the Fusion 22H2 (aka, second half of 2022) Tech Preview, VMware now includes the first pre-release version of VMware Tools. VMware Tools are the drivers that get injected into the guest operating system to provide emulated hardware compatibility with the host computer’s hardware. The beta release of VMware Tools that comes with the new Fusion beta offers support for a virtual Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 chip, a Microsoft requirement for Windows 11, drivers for 2D graphics and VMX3 networking drivers. During this beta period, VMware continues to offer Fusion as a free download. New VMware Fusion licenses start at $149.

    Now, the bad news. Fusion 22H2 is still in beta. While my first run experience with the latest build of Fusion is running well, the setup and installation process is not for the casual user. This all stems from a licensing deal between Microsoft and Qualcomm. In short, Qualcomm is the exclusive manufacturer of ARM SoCs that are used by Microsoft, and a select few partners, for OEM devices the run the ARM edition of Windows. The exclusive nature of this deal, therefore, prevents Microsoft from selling ARM CPU editions of Windows directly to customers as they do with versions of Windows that run on Intel and AMD processors.

    As end-users, the only way to get a Windows for ARM installer is to enroll in the Microsoft Windows Insider beta program. But the Microsoft provided installer comes in a Hyper-V .vhdx virtual disk image file. While Parallels Desktop 17 does a good job of automatically downloading, converting, and installing Windows 11 for you, there is no such option with Fusion. Honestly, that’s a bit of a letdown, in my opinion. To get the ARM version of Windows 11 to run on the Fusion 22H2 technical preview, you are left to download the .vhdx Microsoft installer file and then do the .iso file conversion on your own. Otherwise, you are left with the option of downloading an untrusted and pre-converted .iso file from the Internet. If VMware plans on making Windows 11 compatibility on Apple Silicon Mac’s a selling point, my expectation is that they will need to do a lot of work to give customers a smooth onboarding process like Parallels did.

    Windows 11 Pro running in VMware Fusion 2H22 Technical Preview on my Mac Studio

    And therein lies the crux of the problem. There are no companies mentioned here that officially support running Windows 11 on an M1 or M2 Mac. Not Microsoft and certainly not Apple. VMware and Parallels don’t either, but both vendors now ship software drivers that make running Windows 11 on Apple Silicon Macs possible.

    It is possible to get the ARM edition of Windows 11 running on an Apple Silicon Mac and then activate Windows with a Microsoft license key. I was able to activate my Parallels Desktop 17 Windows 11 install with a Windows 11 Home license key that I purchased from NewEgg.com. While my install of Windows 11 Home is now legally licensed, my configuration is absolutely not supported or endorsed as a valid configuration. This hodgepodge approach is good for anyone who wants to tinker with Windows, like I do at home. However, as an IT professional, but is certainly not a production-ready solution. Without official support and legally purchased Windows ARM edition SKUs, this solution has no place in a commercial organization.

    One day, I expect that Microsoft/Qualcomm exclusivity deal will come to an end. More CPU vendors will make ARM-based processors for PCs, and Microsoft will be able to sell Windows ARM licenses to OEMs and customers. Until then, virtualized ARM editions of Windows belong in the lab. Apple, Parallels, and VMware have proven that the foundation is there and that it works. Now, Microsoft just needs to end the Qualcomm contract.

    Until then, I’ll be dreaming of the day when I can have a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a Windows 11 Pro VM running on my desk at work.

  • macos,  microsoft,  virtualization,  vmware,  windows 10,  windows server

    Building a Virtual Active Directory Test Lab

    Windows Server Core, Windows 10 Pro, and macOS Big Sur in an AD domain.

    It has been a long time since I build a Microsoft Active Directory lab environment. Years ago, I put together a test lab with physical white box machines that I built. The popularity of virtual machine technology makes all of that space hogging, wires everywhere, make your wife annoyed mess a thing of the past.

    This will be the first in a series of posts about how I setup a virtual test lab using VMware Fusion on my Mac.

    Microsoft Insider Programs

    I have been dabbling with virtual Ubuntu machines over the last year or so, and I wanted to do something a little different. Microsoft offers IT pros a few of their products free of charge, for non-production use, of course, for training and development purposes as part of the Insider program. IT types who want to play along will be interested in the Windows 10, Windows Server (Core), Visual Studio Preview, and SQL Server Developer. There are also programs for Microsoft Edge and Office 365, if you are so inclined.

    Make Up of the Lab

    I’m looking for a playground so my requirements are pretty low. To build my virtual lab environment I will be using my everyday use 2015 5K iMac with a 3.3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 CPU and 32GB of RAM. Faster CPUs and more RAM is always better, however, in 2015 my needs were different. I am also running VMware Fusion Pro 12 as the hypervisor on my iMac. Due to the physical constrains of my iMac, not all of these virtual machines will be running all the time. Likewise, they will not be optimized for speed.

    As a side note, anyone purchasing a new M1 Apple Silicon powered Macintosh – the 2020 MacBook Air, the 2020 2-port USB-C 13-inch MacBook Pro, or the 2020 silver Mac mini – will not currently be able to run virtualization technology like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop because these apps haven’t yet been updated to work on M1 and Apple’s new virtualization technology layer.

    For my initial lab setup, I plan on deploying the Insider editions of Windows Server Core, Windows 10 Pro, and then building an Active Directory domain to manage the environment. Then, I added a virtualized macOS 11 Big Sur VM. In the future, I plan to deploy an IIS web server on my domain controller and the developer edition of SQL Server on another AD member Core server. I will be using Microsoft’s RD Client for macOS to connect to the Windows machines. To network the virtual machines together, I will use the “Share with my Mac” VMware Fusion networking option. From my home network perspective, there will only be one DHCP1 IP network address being used (by my iMac) and each VM will get it’s own private IP address thanks to the magic of NAT2.

    VMware Fusion 12’s Network NAT Option

    For my next article in this series, I will discuss the setup process for Windows Server Core.

  • apple,  mac os x,  mac os x server,  virtualization

    Virtualizing Mac OS X

    With the beta version of Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks out – or for the curious – you can virtualize Mac OS X and start playing or running a second virtual Mac.

    There are some restrictions as you might expect.  The following is directly from the vmWare website:

    You can create a Mac OS X Server virtual machine, with these restrictions:
    For more information, see Creating a Mac OS X Server Virtual Machine in VMware Fusion in the VMware Fusion Help.

    I have both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion on my Mac.  I’ll have to try this out sometime and install Mac OS X Server 10.8 in a VM.

    You can read more on the VMware website.