Moving my Windows VM system from Intel Mac to new ARM Mac--Any ways to port system?

[Wayne Sobon]

I have a long-running Windows 10 system running on my prior Intel Core Macbook Pro; have new Apple/ARM-based Macbook Pro.   Is there any way to port somehow my windows system/VM from that Mac to this one (I understand that Fusion on new system can't simply read the prior architecture VM directly)?  Or is that just not possible and I would just need to build a new Windows system on the new Mac and install apps and port files manually?  Any way to simplify?

thanks so much 

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Wayne S
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[Technogeezer]

Those VMs built on an Intel Mac won't run on a Apple Silicon (M-series/ARM) Mac. There's no way to get around having to re-build the VM from scratch since Microsoft doesn't provide a way to switch the processor architecture of a system from Intel to ARM short of a re-installation that wipes the entire disk.

You'll need to create a new VM using Windows 11 ARM. Windows 10 (or any other version of WIndows) won't run as a VM on Apple Silicon. And yes, you'll also need to re-create your user account and re-nstall all of the applications that you'll want to use in the VM.

Once you've rebuilt your VM, you do have the ability to import the data from your old VM to your new one. Outside of trying to restore files from a backup of files taken from within the VM, you might want to try this:

• Power down the new Windows 11 VM.
• Restore the old Windows 10 x64 VM onto your new Mac. 
• Add the Windows 10 VM's virtual disk to the new VM as a second hard disk drive. Consult the Fusion documentation if you don't know how to do this. 
• Power on the Windows 11 ARM VM and verify that the second hard drive is visible in both Windows Disk Management and the File Explorer.
• Use the File Explorer in Windows to copy files from the old drive to the new one. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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