Up grade IMac and VM no longer works

[larry989]

I upgraded my old Mac to a Mini and Sequoia 15.1 was installed. Tried to star my old VM and got the following message.

Is there a way to save this or do I need to make a new VM?

[Technogeezer]

You might want to take a look at the Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide, where this is discussed in more detail, and what your options are.

TL;DR

Apple Silicon (M1/2/3/4) Macs -- which are ARM architecture chips, not Intel -- can't run virtual machines that were built on Macs that use Intel chips - that's what this message is trying to tell you. (Rosetta won't make them run either because Rosetta does not translate the low level Intel instructions needed to run virtual machines - that's a documented Apple restriction.)

If this is a Linux VM, you'll need to rebuild it with an ARM (aarch64 or arm64) version of Linux. Most of the major Linux distros  (such as Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Red Hat, Rocky, ALMA) have ARM distributions. 

If this is a Windows VM, you'll need to rebuild the VM with Windows 11 ARM (no other Windows versions will work).

In both of the above cases, the disks from those VMs can be added to the rebuilt VMs and your data copied to your new VM. All applications will need to be reinstalled. 

If this is a macOS VM, you're going to have some decisions to make. Fusion doesn't support virtualization of ANY macOS version. You can use UTM (free from https://mac.getutm.app in its virtualization mode to virtualize versions of macOS that run on Apple Silicon (ARM) CPUs -- that's Monterey to Sequoia. (You don't have to pay the Parallels tax - and UTM does exactly the same thing that Parallels does for virtualizing macOS. It's using the same high level Apple Virtualization Framework -- and has the same limitations compared to Fusion VMs).

Old VMs running macOS Big Sur or earlier are the worst case situation. You should be considering modern equivalents of any old, unsupported (and likely abandoned) software that keeping you running those old, unsupported macOS versions. You might be able to reinstall these older unsupported macOS versions on an Intel CPU emulator such as that found in UTM and maybe continue to run that old software. But that's not something that's easy or advisable to do unless you have a lot of time on your hands. You'll have to tinker with running macOS on the non-Apple emulated (unsupported) hardware provided by an Intel CPU emulator.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[larry989]

You're so right, while I was waiting for help I looked at your document and it completely helped.

it is a really good source and thank you so much for doing that for us newbies

i have build a new VM and it workes great

thanks

[wit]

Hello Paul,

sorry for breaking in on this thread but I'm unable to reply to you on the thread I'd like to:

https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/question/where-is-vmware-fusion-1361-file-import-funcion#26da0060-1852-4c2f-876b-01929177198d

MBP 14" M1 Pro w/ Sequoia 15.1 running Win 11 Pro ARM and Debian ARM on latest version of Parallels. I just installed Fusion 13.6.1 and, following this guide

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Fusion/13/com.vmware.fusion.using.doc/GUID-C3462E12-59A0-4E50-BE4B-067A259291CA.html

I thought I'd find Import option but, by the looks of things, it had been pulled from Fusion.

Is there a way for Fusion to import machines from Parallels, as it was happening before?

Since Parallels is running on Apple Silicon it could only run ARM VMs, so there should be no point for Fusion in denying import from Parallels.

Thank you and apologies once again for breaking in

[wit]

Hello Paul,

sorry if I'm breaking in Larry's topic, I tried to reply on the appropriate topic but I'm unable to, this one:

https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/question/where-is-vmware-fusion-1361-file-import-funcion#26da0060-1852-4c2f-876b-01929177198d

I'm on a 2022 MBP 14" M1 Pro, Sequoia 15.1, running a Win11 ARM and a Debian ARM VMs on the latest version of Parallels.

I just installed Fusion 13.6.1 and tried to import Parallels VMs as per the following guide:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Fusion/13/com.vmware.fusion.using.doc/GUID-C3462E12-59A0-4E50-BE4B-067A259291CA.html

But like the user in the other post, I see no "File > Import".

I'm wondering since when the import from Parallels feature had been pulled from Fusion, since being on an Apple Silicon based machine and running ARM OSes on Parallels, it shouldn't be different from importing x86 Parallels VMs on an Intel based machine.

Thank you, apologies again for breaking in.

[Technogeezer]

Import of VMs (either from .ova/.ovf or Parallels) is unsupported in Fusion on Apple Silicon.

See the Unofficial Fusion for Apple Silicon Companion Guide where there are workarounds for the import of Parallels VMs to Fusion on Apple Silicon.

Windows VMs are pretty straightforward in the procedure, but note that you have to have a local account with admin privileges in the Parallels Windows VM before performing the conversion. You won't be able to complete the conversion without it. 

Linux VMs will prove a bit more challenging. The procedure in the Companion GUide will convert the Parallels disk format to VMware disk format, but the boot loader and fstab in the VM is expecting to using Parallels virtual devices. The problem here is that the virtual hardware for Linux in a Parallels VM is different than the virtual hardware on Fusion. Unless you're comfortable with rebuilding the GRUB boot loader and fstab entries in the VM when using a Linux recovery environment, you may find it easier to:

• "convert" the Parallels virtual disk using the first few steps in the procedure in the Companion Guide, but don't build a new VM to use it as a boot drive
• rebuild a new Debian VM under Fusion
• attach the converted Parallels disk as a second hard drive to the new Debian VM

You can then mount the Parallels disk in the VM and copy files to the new Debian VM.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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