VMware Fusion is a software

hypervisor A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

developed by VMware for

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

systems. It allows Macs with

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

or Apple M series CPUs to run

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

s with guest

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s, such as

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, or macOS, within the host macOS operating system.

Overview

VMware Fusion can virtualize a multitude of operating systems, including many older versions of

, which allows users to run older Mac

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

that can no longer be run under the current version of macOS, such as

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

and

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

applications.

History

VMware Fusion, which uses a combination of paravirtualization and

hardware virtualization Hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers as complete hardware platforms, certain logical abstractions of their componentry, or only the functionality required to run various operating systems. Virtualization emulates the hardw ...

made possible by the Mac transition to Intel processors in 2006, marked VMware's first entry into Macintosh-based

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

virtualization In computing, virtualization (abbreviated v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers. Virtualization began in the 1960s wit ...

. VMware Fusion uses Intel VT present in the Intel Core microarchitecture platform. Much of the underlying technology in VMware Fusion is inherited from other VMware products, such as

VMware Workstation VMware Workstation Pro (known as VMware Workstation until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015) is a hosted (Type 2) hypervisor that runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systems. It enables users to set up virtual machines (VM ...

, allowing VMware Fusion to offer features such as

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

and SMP support. VMware Fusion 1.0 was released on August 6, 2007, exactly one year after being announced. Along with the

Mac transition to Apple silicon The Mac transition to Apple silicon was the process of switching the central processing units (CPUs) of Apple's line of Mac computers from Intel's x86-64 processors to Apple-designed Apple silicon ARM64 systems-on-a-chip. Apple CEO Tim Coo ...

in 2020, VMware announced plans for Fusion to support the new M-series platform and ARM architecture, releasing a tech preview for M1 chips in September 2021. In November 2022, VMware Fusion 13 was released, allowing ARM virtualization on Apple Silicon chips. Coinciding with the release, VMware implemented support for TPM 2.0 and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

4.3, along with improvements to VMware Tools on

Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...

. VMware Fusion 13 retains support for Intel Macs, distributing the software as a universal binary. On May 13, 2024, it was announced that VMware Fusion Pro would become free for personal use. Previously VMware Fusion (not Pro) was free for personal use; this edition would be discontinued, effectively replaced by the Pro edition. At the same time, commercial use would switch to an annual subscription, removing the option to buy a one-off perpetual license. In November 2024, this change was expanded to include commercial and educational users, thereby making the software free for everyone. At the same time, however, Broadcom discontinued official technical support for the product, instead directing users to seek help from existing documentation and the community.

System requirements

* Most Macs launched in 2015 or later with Apple Silicon or Intel processors for VMware Fusion 13, most Macs launched in 2012 or later for VMware Fusion 12, most Macs launched in 2011 or later for VMware Fusion 11, any

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

capable

Mac for VMware Fusion 8 *

macOS Ventura macOS Ventura (version 13) is the nineteenth major release of macOS, Apple's operating system for Macintosh computers. The successor to macOS Monterey, it was announced at WWDC 2022 on June 6, 2022, and launched on October 24, 2022. macOS V ...

or later for VMware Fusion 13,

macOS Catalina macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and ...

or later for VMware Fusion 12, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan or later for VMware Fusion 11, Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later for VMware Fusion 8 * Operating system installation media for virtual machines

Overview

History

System requirements

Operating system support

Version history

See also

References

Further reading

External links