Does any Vmware fusion for mac 11, 12, or 13 run on any of the newer MacOS BigSur and newer ?

[Etop Udoh]

I just upgraded my Mac Pro 5,1 to MacOs BigSur from Catalina where Vmware Fusion 11.5 was running just great....

now I get the "The processor does not support XSAVE error message....

I was using the opencore patcher to get MacOS BigSur running...

My question is, will any of the other new macOS newer than BigSur work or will they all give the same error message ?

Does Vmware fusion 11, 12, or 13 run on any of the newer macOS ?

Vmware fusion 13 for mac is supposed to be free for personal use now, correct ?

I saw that Vmware 13 players for mac have all be discontinued, would they have worked in this situation ?

I was looking for a free license to try but only to find out they have been discontinued....

if so, then is it just the hardware of the older macs that is the problem, so basically a no go ?

I saw a technical description stating that kext support was the issue and BigSur had changed to or from that 

to something else....

I hate to upgrade again just to get the same problem....

thanks....

[ColoradoMarmot]

Fusion runs on apple supported OS and hardware stacks - OpenCore isn't supported (and never has been).  It isn't like most software - it has deep hooks into the OS to virtualize environments, and relies on features built into the OS and hardware.

[Technogeezer]

Apple recommended that virtualization vendors stop using kernel extensions. So VMware stopped using kernel extensions on Fusion 12 and later in favor of Apple's recommended system extensions & hypervisor frameworks. Those older kernel extensions don't work as they've not been updated for Big Sur. 

You also have a bigger issue that's hardware related and OpenCore can't fix: Fusion 12 and later requires the Intel CPU XSAVE instruction. Your Mac Pro doesn't have it. Nothing you can do about that.

Fusion 12 is the last version that supports Big Sur. Fusion 13 requires Monterey or later. Still won't run on your Mac Pro because of the lack of XSAVE hardware instruction. 

Broadcom no longer provides paid perpetual licenses or free personal use licenses for Fusion 12. 

Your options are to move back to Catalina and Fusion 11 or get newer hardware. Or switch to Virtual Box or Parallels and good luck. 

------------------------------
- Paul (technogeezer)
------------------------------