wrote:
Yes, it was, while when you read carefully then you will see that there is a link how to get the right Windows including license and that there is also the option how to do it in Fusion too.
And Windows for Arm is long on the market while they are also installed on the Raspberry PC's. Its only need to look on network how and where to get it and how to install it on the specific PC.
I disagree with you on a couple of points, based on using Windows 11 ARM on Fusion and answering questions here for about 2 years now.
Licensing stopped being an issue well over a year and a half ago. Users can use purchased Windows 11 licenses (e.g. Retail or System Builder) to activate Windows 11 ARM. Nothing special about that.
If you're looking for information about obtaining Windows 11 ARM media for use with Fusion, you will find a lot of outdated/inaccurate information on the network. More experienced users may be able to sift through the noise and find the right answer. Less experienced users won't, end up getting frustrated, and posting here.
That's why I wrote and maintain the unofficial guide found in the VMware Fusion Documents section of this forum - to eliminate the need for users to have to comb through the web and piece together things on their own. The unofficial guide provides up-to-date guidance specifically tailored to running VMs (including Windows) with Fusion on Apple Silicon. Readers are getting the benefit of the collective experiences of the VMware Fusion community since Fusion was released on Apple Silicon - in one place. The unofficial guide has helped out many users here. There's something to be said about the advantages of a pdf/e-book compared to a video, especially if you're using it as a reference while you perform an installation. You don't need to pause and rewind an e-book to verify a step or review that you understood something.
The articles you reference make things more complicated for users of Fusion that want to install Windows 11 ARM. They recommend things like:
- Using third party, community sourced Windows installers. As a former security professional, that sets off red alerts all over the place. You may trust them. I do not. My biggest concerns are what exactly have been done to the installers and how do they differ from what Microsoft has provided.
- Using uupdump.net to build ISO. That's a complex task that normal users have trouble with. I not only answered questions, but used the process extensively before easier-to-use options became available. it's not easy for anyone other than technically oriented users. And you need a Windows machine to build them - they don't build for Windows 11 on the Mac.
- Using Insider Preview releases. That's also a process that normal users have trouble with, starting with the need to convert Windows Insider VHDX files to VMware virtual disk format. The pre-release nature of Windows Insider software is also something that less experienced users will eventually have trouble with. For example, Dev and Canary channels expire with no easy way to update them in-place when run under Fusion. Tell a user that they'll have to back up all their data and re-install Windows when those builds stop working because they expired.
- Installing Parallels and using that to get a copy of Windows. That's not what users of Fusion want to hear.
The tool that VMware built into 13.5 is simpler than any one of these, and it obtains the official release build from Microsoft's ESD (not UUP) repositories. VMware does document how to use Fusion's tool. The unofficial guide helps people along with additional tips and techniques.
My next best option to obtain Windows 11 ARM for use with Fusion would be to use the open-source CrystalFetch utility found in the Mac App store and written by the developers of UTM. It uses the same process to obtain Windows 11 ISOs as Fusion's built-in utility, If you want to use UTM instead of Fusion to run a Windows 11 ARM VM, CrystalFetch is the best way to get a copy of the installation ISO.