Setting up Windows 11 to run on an external SSD?

[Technogeezer]

@Anibal Herrera asked this question in the comments to the Companion Guide and I thought this would be of interest to the broader community.

I've been looking for information on setting up VMware Fusion with Windows 11 on an external SSD using a Mac Mini M4 with the 15.3 OS. I've only found one instance of someone indicating that they downloaded it to an external drive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXO4DhQRL0&list=PL5P1j6UrvjAD3iVV4o0z2csX6oq3wPh8O&index=5) but he doesn't really say how he did it. I also couldn't find any instructions on the Unofficial Guide. Does anyone have any experience doing this? I realize that a lot has changed over the years, especially with the new M4 macs so there might not be much info out there, but I would appreciate any help. I want to make sure I do this right the first time.

This question applies to both Intel and M-series (Apple Silicon) Mac, by the way.

I run with all my VMs on an external SSD and they run just fine.

My recommendation would be to format the external SSD as a macOS APFS file system, and select that drive (or a sub-folder on that drive) as the destination when you save the VM at creation time. Two other hints:

• Exclude the SSD's volume (or sub-folder on the volume) from Time Machine backups and Spotlight indexing
• If you're running a third-party anti-virus program on your Mac exclude your VM from AV scanning. If you need AV, run it in the VM (AV scanning VMs on the Mac can result in false positives and broken VMs). 

I would not go down the road of trying to create the VM to run natively on an external SSD's raw partitions ( such as what's done with Boot Camp on Intel Macs). While It's doable, there's a manual component to the setup using undocumented VMware command line utilities. The resulting setup is brittle and can break at any time - macOS does not provide persistent disk device naming that permits raw partitions to work reliably for a VM across system reboots and/or device un-plugs. You'd have to go back and re-run the VMware command line utilities if the OS device names change. Not worth the effort, IMO.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Clyde Ingram]

@Anibal Herrera, I installed VMware Fusion Pro 13.6.3 on an Apple M4 Pro (with macOS Sequoia 15.3.2) last week.  I created a Windows 11 64-bit Arm VM on an external SSD.  I had several struggles, but it worked in the end.

I used the default format (ExFAT), simply to avoid erasing the 3 files that came with the SSD:

• Samsung Portable SSD SW for Android.txt
• SamsungPortableSSD_Setup_Mac_1.0.pkg
• SamsungPortableSSD_Setup_Win_1.0.exe

But I'll scrap this and take @technogeezer 's advice of formatting the SSD as macOS APFS.  And repeat the installation.

You state that the YouTube video of installation on an SSD "doesn't really say how he did it."  What problems did you have, and where do you think his information was incomplete?  The video is a little dated, as some of the dialogs run differently.

At the "Select the Installation Method" dialog, I did not select "Download Windows from Microsoft".  Instead, I had already browsed to Microsoft website for Windows 11 64-bit Arm, Home 24H2, I think from here:

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows11arm64

I dragged the ISO file from my Downloads folder to the "Install from disk or image" field.

When you press play to do the installation, a black screen briefly prompts you to "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD ...".  You have to be quick to do this before the prompt vanishes.  First time, I was too slow, and decided to uninstall the VM and re-start installing the ISO.  But I struggled to manually find all the files Broadcom says you should delete.  This site helps:

• https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=1017838  

But then I lacked root permissions to delete some listed files/folders.  This video helped:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9WOakYd1VY  

(Probably simpler uninstalling with AppCleaner.)

At the "Is this the right country or region?" dialog, I found that the suggested key combination did not produce a Windows Cmd window, so I could not enter the command OOBE \BYPASSNRO.  Instead, I installed VMware Tools by following the help at:

• https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/fresh-install-of-windows-11-arm-to-vmware-fusion-pro-1362-stuck-on-lets-connect-you-to-network-window 

This VMware Tools solution is again courtesy of technogeezer.

I hope this helps.

[Technogeezer]

@Clyde Ingram - you don't need to reinstall Fusion to get around the "Press any key" issue. Simply power off the VM from the Fusion menu and then power it back on. That will boot the VM again from the CD/DVD media (the only one that has a bootable operating system at this stage of installation).

You are correct that you have to be quick to respond to that "Press any key" prompt. You only get about 5 seconds to click the mouse pointer in the window so that the VM can grab keyboard focus to accept the keyboard press. A quicker way to force the keyboard focus may be to type Command-G, then press any key.

You should not need to use the OOBE\BYPASSNRO hack unless you want to install Windows using a local account instead of a Microsoft account. It's no longer necessary or recommended to use that hack to install the VMware network driver when using a generic Windows 11 ARM ISO from Microsoft. The Unofficial Companion Guide found in the Library section of the Fusion Community has instructions on how to install the driver from the Windows OOBE setup in Windows 11 24H2. 

What keyboard combination did you try (the usual advice if you have a Mac keyboard is to use Fn-Shift-F10).

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[Anibal Herrera]

Thank you Paul and Clyde for your response and helpful hints. I went ahead and installed the VM on my internal SSD but Windows was installed on my external (since the VM is only around 1.2GB, but Windows is around 28GB) and it runs from the external. To be clear the VM is running from my internal (as Paul recommended). After a lot of digging around on the internet I found another youtube video that really helped. For those of you out there that want to do the same thing you can check it out here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkhui1qIozA&t=542s). Also the tips posted by @Technogeezer about excluding the external SSD from Time Machine backups and Spotlight indexing, and excluding anti-virus apps from scanning your VM make a lot of sense.

Another thing worth mentioning is that I wasn't sure if I needed to buy Windows 11 Pro license from Microsoft in order to continue using it or to download and run apps. I found out that you don't have to buy it. The payed version allows you to make some customizations and a few other features, but is not necessary for downloading and running apps on Windows and you can use the free version indefinitely or until Microsoft changes their minds about that. 

After going through the whole installation process of the VM and Windows, I tried to download an application and I got an error stating, ".NET Desktop runtime was not correctly installed" so I went to this site from Microsoft (https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet) and downloaded the version 8.0. After that the download of the application worked and has been running smooth so far. Thanks again for your help and I hope this thread can help others in the future with the same questions.

[Technogeezer]

Another thing worth mentioning is that I wasn't sure if I needed to buy Windows 11 Pro license from Microsoft in order to continue using it or to download and run apps. I found out that you don't have to buy it. The payed version allows you to make some customizations and a few other features, but is not necessary for downloading and running apps on Windows and you can use the free version indefinitely or until Microsoft changes their minds about that. 

A minor point. There is no "free" version of Windows. You're expected to pay for it. Read their end user license agreement. It contains the following clause:

5. Authorized Software and Activation.

You are authorized to use this software only if you are properly licensed and the software has been properly activated with a genuine product key or by other authorized method.

Windows does "mostly work" if you don't activate it with a license, but using it without a license is technically a violation of Microsoft's licensing terms. It's unlikely that they will come after individuals (but if you work for a company that's a different story).

I'd recommend buying a Windows license if you're using it regularly. There are many places on-line where you can purchase legitimate Microsoft Windows licenses at a reasonable cost. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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