I remembered that you can hold down the Option key when clicking "Scaled" and all resolutions are shown, and 1280x720 is listed and it works! No blurry text or black bars!
I wish VMWare would open source the latest driver. (or maybe they have and I just haven't noticed?)
I've been struggling with switching between the host Finder and the Mojave guest in full screen mode. With the latest VMWare video driver, to switch from Finder to guest, I was having to click the VMWare dock icon twice with the mouse, and to go from guest to Finder I was having to Command Tab twice. With the 2009 VMWare driver, to switch from Finder to guest seems to require only 1 click on the VMWare dock icon, and from the guest to the Finder there seems to be no key combo that switches, I have to move my mouse to the screen edge to show the host's Finder dock. I'm baffled as to why a video driver change affects full screen switching behaviour.
I'm kinda stoked about this. It would be great if I could run Mojave on Apple Silicon or Promox with my old Adobe software.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 12, 2025 11:43 PM
From: ziggy90127
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
Hi Paul, all good.
I was able to find source code and precompiled .kexts for Mojave. I don't know the lineage of this code yet, but it does work! Trouble is, it's only listing 4:3 resolutions.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 12, 2025 02:07 PM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
I should have double checked my work a bit more closely before my suggestion. Apologies for wasting your time.
I went back over to check my work based on your findings. I am running on a 2014 Mac mini with Fusion 13.5.2 and macOS 12.7.6 Monterey. My external monitor is an HP 21.5" model (non-retina) and runs at 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080) - similar to what you're doing.
What I found was the same as you. The guest monitor resolution's height won't resize lower than 768. Dragging the lower border up lower than 720 just snaps it back to 768. And moving the right or left borders resizes the VM window but keeps the resolution and aspect ratio the same (resulting in black bars upper and lower, and scaling of the window).
I was also able to set the monitor's resolution in the host Mac to 720p (giving a 1280 x 720 resolution). I see the exact same thing as you do for the VM.
I fear, though that Broadcom is not going to go back and make any further feature changes (other than perhaps security patches) to VMware Tools for Intel Macs base on their support statements: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=88697. They've already announced that VMware Tools for macOS have been frozen (you'll find that the Tools for macOS are at a lower version than those currently available for other platforms such as Windows and open-vm-tools).
------------------------------
- Paul (technogeezer)
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 12, 2025 12:08 PM
From: ziggy90127
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
Hi Paul, thanks for trying this out.
Running the guest maximized at 1280x720 is the only mode I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I'm not able to duplicate your 1280x720 result. For testing I put the Sequoia host into 1080p mode, and dragged the Mojave guest resize around, it enforces a minimum resolution of 1024x768.
What host, host version, vmware version, and guest version are you using? If you could post a screen shot, that would be great!
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 10, 2025 04:24 PM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
Also, have you tried to put the VM's window in full screen mode? That should also "coerce" macOS to match the resolution of the VM to the window (full screen) size.
------------------------------
- Paul (technogeezer)
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 10, 2025 04:21 PM
From: Technogeezer
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
VMware Tools for macOS have been frozen in functionality (they are considered in a deprecated support status) for a few years now. I wouldn't expect any kind of change to be made to remove this restriction in the vmware-setResolution utility.
As a work-around, have you tried to resize the window by dragging its edges? For example, if the window is the right height for you, then drag the right or left edge of the window slightly so that the window increases (or decreases) in size. (you should also see a small yellow box representing the dimensions of the window as you do this). That should "poke" macOS to change the resolution to the window size.
I was able to get a 1280x720 sized window (without black bars and properly scaled) by doing this.
------------------------------
- Paul (technogeezer)
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 10, 2025 05:55 AM
From: ziggy90127
Subject: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 guest resolution
Hello,
Host: macOS Sequoia 15.2
VMWare Fusion Pro: 13.6.2
Guest: macOS Mojave 10.14.6
Virtual Machine Hardware Version: 21
VMware Tools daemon, version 12.1.1.12
My Mac host is connected to a 1920x1080 monitor, but for reasons, I run it at 1280x720. Both resolutions have the same aspect ratio, there are no black bars at the sides, so that's not an issue. The reduction is 1.5x, and Mac OS does such a good scaling job, it's hard to notice any reduction in sharpness at all, it's genius. This has been the case since OS X came out in 2001.
I'm trying to run a macOS Mojave 10.14.6 as a guest for reasons (valid Adobe CS6 license, valid Mojave license), which works, however, the guest is running at 1280x768. This causes black bars at the left and right of the screen, due to the different aspect ratio, which in turn causes scaling, which is blurry compared to the host, and the black bars are a loss of screen real estate. The guest is running at 1280x768, there is no option to run at 1280x720. The tool "vmware-resolutionSet" enforces a lower height limit of 768. Please change the lower height limit of "vmware-resolutionSet" to 720. 720p TV's and monitors have been around for a long time, there's no reason to cap the lower limit to 768. Other competitor's virtualization software handles 1280x720 with no problem.
Thanks.
VMWare's resolution: