Fusion 25H2 Installation Problem

[Brandon Shultz]

I've been running VMware Fusion 13.6.4 (24832108) with no issues.  I twice installed Fusion 25H2 (once after completely removing version 13.6.4) with the same result - white circle/slash on VMware Icon in dock and message that it is incompatible with my version of MacOS which is 26.0.1 (25A362).

Removing Fusion 25H2 and reinstalling 13.6.4 was fortunately successful, putting me back where I started.  

What am I doing wrong?  Thanks in advance.

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[Technogeezer]

Assuming you're following the documented Fusion installation process and running on a Mac that's supported by Tahoe, it doesn't look like you're doing anything wrong. 

Questions:

• Are you running on a Mac that's under corporate IT control using a mobile device management (MDM) solution such as Microsoft InTune or JAMF? That can be confirmed if you open System Settings > Device Management and seeing if there's anything other than an iMovie provisioning profile. If so, double check with your IT support to see if they've put any restrictions on using the new version of Fusion.
• Are you running third-party anti-virus software? If so, make sure it's disabled before installing Fusion.

Assuming that no MDM solution or third party anti-virus software is in use, we have seen occasions where it looks like the macOS built-in anti-malware (e.g. Gatekeeper) for some unknown reason interferes with the normal Fusion installation. You might want to try the following:

• Make sure you're running as a user that has administrative privileges. or has access to administrator credentials. 
• Move /Applications/VMware Fusion.app to the trash and empty it.
• Mount the Fusion installer disk image.
• Don't double click on the VMware Fusion icon to start installation. Instead, drag the VMware Fusion icon to the /Applications folder.
• After the copy completes, run the following command to see if the quarantine attribute is set on the Fusion application:

xattr /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app

• If the com.apple.quarantine attribute is set, remove it:

sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app

• Now see if the application Icon for Fusion in the Applications folder looks fine. You may also want to right click on the VMware Fusion.app in the Applications folder and select "Show Package Contents". There should be a Contents folder, and that folder should contain additional items. 
• If all of that looks OK, then try to execute Fusion.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Brandon Shultz]

Success. I believe the problem was not properly removing the older version prior to updating VMware.

Thanks for the help!

[raustinat]

It's not necessary to uninstall 13 to install 25H2 - I just did it an install of 25H2 over 13 on my M3 MBP.

The VM then gets updated when booting up for the first time - optional, but I don't use older versions of VMware - and all runs fine.

Even the notification bug and the "Did you move or copy?" question (always chose move) disappeared. :)

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