VMware Releases Fusion 22H2 Tech Preview for macOS With Windows 11 Support

VMware has released this week the Fusion 22H2 Tech Preview for Mac users. This free public release brings support for Windows 11 on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, something that Parallels Desktop for Mac pioneered last year. Additionally, this VMware Fusion Tech Preview also improves Linux support on Apple Silicon Macs.

“While it is a little early, and things on Apple silicon don’t always behave like we’re used to on Intel, we’re thrilled to be able to share the work we’ve been doing to prepare support for Windows 11 virtual machines on Fusion, for both Intel and Apple silicon Macs. Many new enhancements and capabilities came together to bring Windows 11 to the Mac desktop with Fusion, and while they were designed with Windows 11 in mind, the tools can be used for other VMs as well,” explained Michael Roy, Product Line Manager at VMware.

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To support the minimum Windows 11 requirements, VMware has improved its virtual TPM 2.0 module with support for a ‘fast encyrption’ mode. Fast Encryption can improve VM performance by only encrypting the files needed to support a TPM. Additionally, VMware’s virtual TPM 2.0 module can now auto-generate a password for the user, using the local keychain to store the encryption key.

The 22H2 update to the VMware Fusion Tech Preview also brings graphics enhancements with 2D graphics drivers for Windows on ARM VMs. Mac users will be able to adjust display settings and run their VMs in 4K and higher resolutions. For Linux VMs, the Mesa SVGA graphics driver also introduces 3D hardware acceleration and OpenGL 4.3 + GLES 3.1 support.

Before you get started with this VMware Fusion 22H2 Tech Preview, be aware that you can’t run x86_64 VMs on M1 Macs. It’s also not possible to use it to create macOS VMs, though this is something the team is looking into. You can download the preview from this page.

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Conversation 5 comments

  • jchampeau

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2022 - 2:02 pm

    <p>Call me a cynic, but virtualization efforts on M1/M2 Mac hardware that don’t include the ability to run “real” Windows and accompanying Windows apps seems like a waste of time.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      30 July, 2022 - 3:08 am

      <p>It depends on what you want. Usually you will run Windows in a VM on Mac or Linux for a specific application or for some testing. If the application runs on WoA, either native or with x64 emulation, then it is better than having to have a second machine sitting around, just for the one application.</p><p><br></p><p>Also, Windows isn’t the only reason to run VMs. I had half a dozen or so VMs running on my Windows PC, they were all Linux machines.</p><p><br></p><p>Running full Intel Windows on Apple Silicon isn’t realistic, the current hardware has extra circuitry to make the translation of Intel code into ARM code more efficient, but this is for the transition period, I would assume. The circuitry takes up space on the SoC that could be better used for other things that the user needs in every day use.</p><p><br></p><p>Given how much software has already been translated to full ARM under macOS, it could possibly be phased out in 3 or 4 generations of Apple Silicon, freeing up more space for something useful. So even if companies spent time getting Intel Windows working fully on Apple Silicon, it would probably be short lived and a waste of investment.</p>

  • digiguy

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2022 - 2:58 pm

    <p>You probably have no hand-on experience. Windows on Arm runs beautifully on M1, far from a waste of time</p>

  • C_J_Martinez

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2022 - 6:42 pm

    <p>I don’t see what’s the hoopla over this, since Parallels has been doing it, very, very well, since last year. I’ve run Win11 ARM on an M1 laptop for almost a year an it runs faster and smoother than several real x64 laptops I’ve tried, not to mention how slowly it runs on Qualcomm ARM laptops. At first people were running Insider Preview versions of Win11 but now you just open Parallels and to create a new VM it donwloads directly from MS, and then you activate it through the Microsoft Store.</p><p><br></p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      30 July, 2022 - 3:13 am

      <p>Because there are a lot of VMware shops out there. For them, it is an important step.</p><p><br></p><p>Although with the takeover of VMware from Broadcom and their aim to go 100% cloud VM solution and keeping on-prem solutions for Fortune 500 clients only, the question is, how long will they continue to invest in such solutions.</p>

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