Fresh Install of Windows 11 Arm to VMware Fusion (Pro?) 13.6.2 Stuck on "Lets Connect You To Network" Window

[Paul Heinrich]

I am attempting a fresh install of Windows 11 Arm to VMware Fusion 13.6.2 on a MacStudio Apple M2 Ultra, Sequoia 15.2. I am currently stuck on the "Lets Connect You To Network" window with a greyed out "Next" button and "No network drivers found".

Where do I find a driver?

Which folder do I install the driver into?

I have tried:

"Could you press Shift + F10 on your keyboard? This will open Command Prompt. At the Command Prompt, type oobe\bypassnro which will allow you to bypass the network connection part of Windows setup."

However, my keyboard does not recognize the VM, no matter how I select it. As a result, all that happens is the sound on my Mac turns on and off.

I have also been advised

"Press Shift + F10 (or Shift + Fn + F10 on Mac) to open the command prompt."

However, my keyboard lacks any Fn key.

[Technogeezer]

Use the following procedure to install the VMware network driver and complete the installation:

1. Once you reach this  "Let's connect you to a network" screen. stop and go to the Fusion menu bar. Click on Virtual Machine >  Install VMware Tools .
2. Answer the prompts to allow the VMware Tools installation CD to be connected to the virtual machine. Wait about 10 seconds or so for the VM to recognize and mount the VMware Tools installer
3. Return to the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, and click on the "Install driver" button.
4. A file explorer dialog will appear. In that dialog, double click on "DVD Drive (D:) VMware Tools" to open the Tools installer CD.
5. In the next dialog, single click on the "vmxnet3" folder to select it, then click on the "Select Folder" button to start the driver installation
6. You will be returned to the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, and you should see the network driver being installed. Wait for the network driver be installed and the network connected. Once the network has been connected, click the "Next" button to continue the setup of Windows.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Paul Heinrich]

Thank you very much. Your workflow worked perfectly.

[Paul Heinrich]

Thank you your workflow worked perfectly the first time. Your time, efforts, and expertise are all well appreciated.

[Ariane Paguia]

this works! Thank you for the step-by-step instruction :)

[lomontman]

This procedure did not work for me. No drivers are installed. I'm asked to reboot, then eventually brought back to the same window asking for drivers to be installed - so an infinite loop. 

[Technogeezer]

I'm a bit concerned when you say "I'm asked to reboot". 

The procedure found in my Jan 13th post above does not ask you to reboot.  The driver is installed and setup continues. The only reboots happen automatically under the control of Windows Setup. The old "use function-F10 to get to a command prompt" procedure did require you to reboot, but that's not the recommended  way to install the network driver with Windows 11 ARM 24H2. The procedure posted above is the preferred one.

Can you describe step-by-step what you did so that we can check it against the proedure. I've personally not seen the procedure fail to install the network driver. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[lomontman]

I must confess this is not an area of expertise for me and I may be doing something completely wrong, but I believe I followed the steps in the procedure exactly as laid out. Attached is the screen shot of the window I get after I choose vmxnet3 folder and hit the "Select folder" button. I am not trying to reboot - it is the only option available - the Reboot button comes up after an activity whirly appears along with text that says "Searching for and installing new drivers". I am NOT using function-F10 to get to a command prompt. I am running VMware Fusion 13.6.3, not 13.6.2.

Here is a screen capture of the folder selection:

[Technogeezer]

The second screen you posted appears correct. I haven't seen that reboot button before. It looks like the driver got installed (it looks like it found an Ethernet device). I'm wondering if the virtual machine is connected to the network..

From the Fusion GUI, can you go to the menu bar, click on Virtual Machine, then select "Network Adapter"

Is the network adapter connected to the virtual machine? (It's connected if the top line of that Network Adapter submenu says "Disconnect Network Adapter"). Then check how the adapter is configured by seeing if one of the other items in that submenu are connected (that is, NAT, Bridged, or Host Only). It should be either Bridged or NAT. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Technogeezer]

I was just able to reproduce what you posted. I was able to get the "Reboot" button if the virtual network adapter was in a disconnected state. I connected the virtual network through the Fusion GUI and the Ethernet adapter shown in Setup went from "Not Connected" to "Connected". The "Next" button which was grayed out then became blue and selectable to continue the Setup without reboot.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[lomontman]

I was haphazardly playing around with network connections and at one point a grabbed an ethernet cable and connected it from an ethernet switch attached to my router to the ethernet port on the power brick for the iMac. That is not how I want to be connected in general, I want to connect over Wi-Fi. I have since disconnected the ethernet cable (wife doesn't want random cables running through the house) and would like to get Wi-Fi connected. 

The Network Adapter is not connected. 

If I click in the box to connect network adapter I get this

Presumably that is because the ethernet cable is no longer connected.

If I go into Network Adapter Settings, I get this

Why isn't a connection made with my computer Wi-Fi at this point?

I can at this point select "Bridged Networking WiFi" and after providing a password I get this

Unfortunately the selection in the radio button doesn't hold, at this point I can't change to Wi-Fi bridge.

So two things aren't working - shared Wi-Fi with my comp and selecting Bridged Wi-Fi

Oops, hold on, if I select "Auto-Detect" it works

The only puzzle at this point then is why "Share with my Mac" won't connect to WiFi, which is running on the computer, but insists on connecting to Ethernet, which is no longer connected

[Technogeezer]

The Fusion UI is finicky on the network selection dialog. You have to click on the button to select it, not just on the name of the connection type.

Here's something to try to see if "Share with my Mac" isn't giving you connection to the network.

Power off the VM and shut down Fusion

Go to the Mac's System Settings > Network

Click on the Ethernet services and make them inactive. 

Restart Fusion. See if "Share with my Mac" now works.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[lomontman]

That didn't help. Still can't get "Share with my Mac" to work. Still fails trying to connect to ethernet and won't switch to WiFi.

Anyway I want to thank you for all your help. Basically up and running at this point which I wouldn't have been without your help. Thanks again!

[lomontman]

Actually according to this I should be using a Bridged Network adapter not Shared - so all good. Again most of this is a bit foreign to me and I somehow got the impression that it would be better to be using NAT

[lomontman]

Duplicate posting - can't seem to be able delete it. Please ignore.

[Axel Schmid]

Hi, thanks for the explanation. Still can't get internet access. Any ideas? Axel

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[Technogeezer]

Did the driver install?

Can you post a screen shot of where you are at this pint in installation?

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Cyrille Vladimirov]

I confirm this way works for me completely:   Window 11 Home installation on VMWare Fusion (MacOS Sequoia)

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[David Evans]

I followed the install instructions - but got trapped in infinite reboot loop.  I kept playing around back outside windows in the network area  ticking between share and automatically detect (and tick the box to share network) and getting message that the network would not connect until it eventually did

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[wywh]

I upgraded from Intel Mac mini 2018, 16 GB RAM, Sequoia with VMware Fusion 25.0.1 and Windows 11 Pro to MacBook Pro M5 16" 24 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD, Tahoe.

I chose to use 8 processor cores, and 12288 MB Memory for the VM -- any comments on that?

I freshly installed Windows 11 Pro from Win11_25H2_English_Arm64.iso and was 1st stuck on "Lets Connect You To Network" (with Network adapter > Share with my Mac). Connecting the Mac via Ethernet instead Wi-Fi did not help but thanks to Technogeezer tip installing the driver via VMware Tools fixed that. Thanks!

I then had install to all VMware Tools as usual. That was a bit confusing because the mounted volume window was not readily visible as it AFAIR used to be.

The next trouble was activating the new Windows install. Selecting "I moved it", using Windows Troubleshooting "I updated PC hardware" as well as several AI-recommended Terminal tricks like using a local account and booting to Windows Recovery and executing some Terminal commands nor logging to microsoft.com and removing all old Devices did not help, and I was ready to purchase a new license.

But copying the old Intel Windows 11 Pro uuid.bios = "** ** ** ** ** ** ** **-** ** ** ** ** ** ** **" to the new .vmwarevm immediately activated the new install.

I knew VMware Tools Shared folders is missing in ARM but using drag and drop works as well although fiddling with Full Screen and Single Window view is clumsy.

Technogeezer's "Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion" is a great source for information. Thanks!

- Matti

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[Technogeezer]

The uuid.bios setting in the .vmx file is one of the things that gets changed in a brand new VM (or by saying "copied" instead of "moved" when asked). If that changes then Windows thinks that you've switched motherboards and will likely ask for reactivation.

What kind of Windows license were you using? Usually retail licences can be transferred fairly easily. System builder/OEM licenses are not so easy to transfer so your workaround may be a way to "fake out" the VM movement so Windows doesn't trigger reactivation. 

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Paul Rockwell (technogeezer)
vExpert 2026 (3x)
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[wywh]

> What kind of Windows license were you using?

I have Windows 11 Pro retail version from stacksocial.com. It was $9.97 which sounded too good to be true so I was prepared to purchase a new license. But it has otherwise worked OK.

I use Windows very rarely mainly to keep track what Windows users talk about when they complain:

Q: Why iPhone movies lack thumbnails and most metadata items?
A: iOS/iPadOS 18 introduced QuickTime FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent tag which some Windows versions are incompatible with. A workaround is to delete that tag with exiftool. ...I just checked and current Windows 11 Pro version has fixed that.

Q: Why Windows does not display or import all iPhone images?
A: Try this... (I am using VM so Windows on bare metal might behave differently, though)

Q: Why Windows does not display iPhone .heic or HEVC?
A: Windows 11 Pro has support for them built-in but...

- Matti

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[Joshua Doss]

This did not work for me running 2026 H3(?). When reaching step #4-5, nothing appears in the window as nothing is matching the apparent filter that Windows is setting to find drivers. So after some digging, this is what the remainder of my setup process looks like:

5. Type Shift+F10
6. In the terminal window--you may have to click the window (perhaps Alt+Tab?) to force it into focus--type d: then Enter, setup, then hit Enter again. (This step could likely be shortened to just typing d:\setup or d:\setup.exe and hitting Enter.)
7. In the Windows setup UI, the VMWare Tools installation window will popup. Go through the installation wizard and install as you would normally.
8. Once VMware Tools are installed, the driver is automatically detected and you can continue setting up Windows 11.

Also interesting to note that Windows picks up everything else in this process: The window resized because the display drivers were detected, etc.

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[Technogeezer]

Joshua,

Thanks for alerting about this. It looks like Broadcom changed the packaging of VMware Tools for Windows ARM in the VMware Tools 13.1.0.0 release. This is the Tools version that's bundled with Fusion 26H1. They appear to have put the drivers within the setup.exe wizard, and not as separate folders as in VMware Tools 13.0.10 and earlier. These missing folders are why the procedure now fails.

I guess we're back to the older way of loading those drivers - which as you discovered involves using Shift-F10 to interrupt the Windows Out-of-box-experience (OOBE) setup. The revised procedure should be:

1. After the VM boots from the hard drive from the first time, and you see the first screen of the Windows OOBE setup (asking "Is this the right country or region?"), stop here - do not click "Yes". 
2. From the VMware Fusion menu bar, click Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools. Answer the prompts so that the Tools ISO is connected to the VM.
3. Return to the Windows console, then type Shift-Fn-F10 to start a Windows command prompt.
4. In the command prompt, start the VMware Tools installation wizard by typing d:\setup.exe You may need to use Alt-Tab in order to see the window of the wizard. Follow the prompts to install VMware Tools. Choose Complete when prompted to choose the setup type.
5. When the setup wizard has completed, you will be asked if you want to restart your computer now. Select Yes to restart now. 
6. The VM will restart, and the first window of the Windows OOBE setup will appear again. Continue from this point to complete the Windows installation. The network will now be discovered.

I will change this in the next edition of the Companion Guide - coming soon! 

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Paul Rockwell (technogeezer)
vExpert 2026 (3x)
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