Updated to macOS 15 Sequoia now all my windows VM are unactivated

[Kris Kasprzyk]

Was running the latest Fusion 13.6.0 and updated to the latest macOS 15.  I have 3 windows VM and all 3 I had to reactive windows so I did and I thought I was goo to go.  Just now I shutdown a windows VM and when I restarted it again asked if I copied or moved the VM.  I answered I copied it and again windows was deactivated.  Not sure what to do here.  Is there a Mac setting that needs changed or an issue with fusion?  Anyone else run into this? 

[Technogeezer]

What Mac model are you running and what macOS version were you running before the upgrade? I've not seen this on my M1 Mac mini  

Windows will ask for reactivation when hardware details change "enough" that it thinks it's running on a different machine. For VMs, that's typically the BIOS UUID and networking MAC adderess.  Not sure why you had to reactvate Windows initially, especially if Fusion didn't ask you the "moved or copied question" at first. Those shouldn't have changed if you didn't get asked. One thought, though. Are you running the VM with bridged or NAT networking?

What's more puzzling is why Fusion asked you about "copied or moved" after you shut it down and restarted it. That means that Fusion thinks the VM resides in a different folder than it did the last time it was powered it on. What folder is the VM stored in? Is it on a mount point that may have changed? Is it on a network drive of folder that's synced to the cloud?

By the way by answering that question "copied", Fusion changed the VM's BIOS UUID and networking MAC address. That will trigger Windows to ask for reactivation.  (You should have answered "moved").

Do you have a backup copy of the VM from before the Mac was upgraded? If so, we might be able to compare the VM config files and get an idea on howcwe might go about fixing this.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Kris Kasprzyk]

I'm on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro.  This is the first time I've hit this and I've used Fusion for years.  Anyways I'm not sure what's changed in the new macOS to cause this.  As far as networking goes I've always run bridged for all adaptors.  Typically just do Wifi but on occasion I'll connect a wired connection also bridged.  

My VM's are all located in the Users/MyUserName/Documents folder.  Nothing here has moved or changed.

I have/use 3 windows VM's two are windows 10 and the other is 11.  My main one I use I had shutdown yesterday and when I reopened it, it again asked if it was copied or moved even though nothing was.  Out of curiosity I went to open the other two and they also asked the same question but I went ahead and closed them without going forward until I figure out what's going on here.  I had reactivated all of them the day before.

Unfortunately I dont have a backup before the update.  

[Technogeezer]

I'm grasping a bit at straws here as to what could be causing this.

My VM's are all located in the Users/MyUserName/Documents folder.

Could you check to see if your iCloud Drive settings have been set to sync Desktop & Documents folders? Can you move the VMs to the default location of the Virtual Machines folder found in your user account's home folder and see if the symptoms change (of course after the first time you open the VM, and choose "Moved" and not "Copied" - this should prevent Windows from thinking that details of the VM have changed and that it should ask for re-activation).

Are you running any third-party anti-virus? If so, it needs to be configured to exclude your VMs.

As far as networking goes I've always run bridged for all adaptors.

Can you check your host adapters settings and see how "Private Wi-FI address is configured". Sequoia adds a "Rotating" option in additon to "Off" and "Fixed". Mine is set to "Off" for my home's wifi network, and "Fixed" doesn't seem to make a difference.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Kris Kasprzyk]

Checked the settings you mentioned and mine are the same.  That's how I've had them set.

So I did start the other 2 VM's selecting the moved choice and those retained their activation.

I decided to fully shutdown the Mac and restarted and again and I was asked again about the VM being copied or moved.  So again I chose moved and those VM's appeared to keep activation.  If I shutdown the VM and restarted it I wasn't asked the question.  Anyways I reactivated my main VM and decided to fully shutdown the Mac one more time and bring it all back up.  This time when opening the VM's they started as expected.  Will do some further testing but as of now they seem to working as expected.  Not sure what the cause is but hopefully it's past...

Out of curiosity I have another Mac, my personal home machine with the same software, etc.  When I opened the VM on it for the first time since the macOS update it started as expected.  No issues what so ever.

[Technogeezer]

Out of curiosity I have another Mac, my personal home machine with the same software, etc.  When I opened the VM on it for the first time since the macOS update it started as expected.  No issues what so ever.

Interesting. Is there a difference in the software that's on the other machine? Since you say "my personal home machine", that sets off some brain cells that suspect the other machine is a corporate-owned or BYOD work-related machine. If so, is there any corporate "compliance-ware" or MDM configuration profiles that have been forced on that system that might change the way that system behaves?  Also, iis some anti-virus software installed on that machine that's not on your personal system?

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Kris Kasprzyk]

There's actually not much difference between the two software wise.  The other is an 2019 intel iMac.  My work laptop doesn't have any special corporate/security type software installed or configured.  I also work from home so both computers are on the same network, etc.

[Technogeezer]

Unfortunately I don't have a backup before the update.  

Hopefully that's an isolated lapse in backups.  

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Kris Kasprzyk]

Yes I do backup but didn't for this round.  Anyways I did do a full reboot of my Mac and all the VM's are now working as expected.  Not sure what was up right after the initial macOS upgrade but everything seems to be business as usual.  Everything that was done is in this thread for those having the same issue.

[Mike Johnson]

I am also on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro and have had a nearly identical upgrade experience. I upgraded to macOS 15 Sequoia a couple weeks ago and 15.0.1 last week. I don't use VMware Fusion a lot, so on Sunday when I fired it up to run Windows 11, it presented me with the Fusion 13.6 update. I shutdown my VM and ran the built-in updater overnight. On Monday morning, it was asking the copied or moved question and I chose "copied". When Win11 came up. it was de-activated and refused to activate. That's when I started searching for a solution and came here.

After reading the various similar experiences here, I tried something a little different and was able to get back up and running without too much trouble. I had a good Time Machine backup from Friday, so I restored the VMWare app back to v13.5.2 and I restored the VMWare Virtual Machine bundle back to how it was on Friday. I then downloaded the 13.6 updater from the Broadcom website rather than use the built-in updater. I fired up VMWare and Win11 and all came up fine, just as it was Friday. I checked my activation status and mad sure I was logged into my Microsoft Account. I ran Windows update and when that was finished, I shut down the VM and quit Fusion. Then I ran the updater I downloaded. Than ran much quicker this time and when it was finished, it automatically ran Fusion 13.6. I started the Win11 VM, which came up fine. New VMWare Tools were installed. Reboot. Then another reboot for EFI Firmware. After that all was well. No copied/moved warning and Win 11 stayed activated.

I also have Fusion on a 2024 M3 MacBook Pro. I ran the built-in updater on it on Saturday and when I ran Fusion just now, I see it's gone the same way as I described above. (Asked me a 2nd time copied or moved and now Winn11 is dI have not tried to fix it yet. 

After all this, now I seem to remember having trouble with the built-in updater freezing on the last update (13.5.2) and had to resort to the standalone version. 

-Mike J

[小平 美咲]

私も同じ現象が起こりました。どう解決していいのかわかりません。MacOS　Sequoia　で、Fusionは13.6.4です。毎回Windowsを起動するたびに、コピー化移動かを尋ねられます。毎回アクティブ化されないため、Microsoftofficeが毎日新しいものと認識されてしまいます。MacOS　SequoiaがVMろ相性が悪いのでしょうか？

何か改善方法はありますか？教えてください！

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[Technogeezer]

The same phenomenon happened to me. I don't know how to solve it. For MacOS Sequoia, Fusion is 13.6.4. Every time you start Windows, you will be asked if you want to copy and move. Because it is not activated every time, Microsoft Office is recognized as new every day. Is MacOS Sequoia not compatible with VM?

(translated from your original post)

If you run into this problem, answer the "moved or copied" question with "Moved". Answering "Copied" will change network card MAC addresses and BIOS UUIDs within the VM's configuration and Windows will determine that it needs re-activation.

If your host Mac is using Wi-Fi, make sure that the Private Wi-Fi settings for the Wi-Fi connection you're using are set to either Off or Fixed. Choosing "Rotating" may make Fusion think it's running on a different machine, which can trigger the "Moved or copied" question.

You may wish to try the following as well:

• Power off the VMs.
• Shut down VMware Fusion.
• Go to the Finder and open your boot disk. 
• Open the folders Library >  Application Support > VMware > VMware Fusion > Shared
• You should find a file called vmInventory. Drag it to the trash and empty the Trash. 

Now restart Fusion and your VM. If you see the "moved or copied", choose "Moved". Shut down the VM. and restart it again. See if the "moved or copied" message continues to appear.

Note there are others that have suggested to create a symbolic link for the vmInventory file that I've noted. I personally don't like that solution because it is very likely to cause problems in the future. The vminventory file found in the system-wide Library folder is for Shared Virtual Machines. Replacing that vminventory file with a symbolic link will break this feature (see the Fusion documentation for more information on shared VMs). 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
vExpert 2025
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[RARelph]

Yes, I'm seeing this as well. It started as soon as I updated MacOS to Sequoia. Every time I start the Win11 Pro VM, Fusion Pro asks if I've moved or copied the VM. I choose moved because, well, I believe copied will deactivate the VM while moved should not. I, too, had been running Fusion Pro 13.6 successfully for almost a month prior to the MacOS upgrade.

[pfruth]

Just another data point...

I'm on a 2019 16in Macbook Pro

I upgraded to MacOS 15.0 (Sequoia) and VMware Fusion Pro 13.6 yesterday.

So far, my Win 11 Pro VM has remained activated.  I have not had to reactivate Win 11.

I too am being prompted to verify that I've Moved or Copied my VMs (all of them) after the MacOS upgrade.

[Barbara Frith]

Have you gotten this to work?  I answered "I copied it" and thought I removed the locked files, but I still can't get the virtual machine to open.

Any suggestions most appreciated.  If not, I'll delete the virtual machine and start over (but would love a link on how to do that).

[Technogeezer]

Could you post the vmware.log file from the VM's bundle? You can find that by locating the VM in the Finder, right click on it, then select "Show Package Contents". Zip up and post any files starting with vmware and having a .log file extension.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[chris_b]

I have the same issue with Sequoia, it asks me to take ownership everytime I start up the same VM.  I select, "I moved it" and then it starts up fine.  But each day same issue.

[Technogeezer]

Fusion 13.6.1 has just been released. Try upgrading to it and see if the problem still exists. One other user reports success with this version - it only asked the question once and did not repeat it. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[RARelph]

I installed 13.6.1 this morning l, quit Fusion, and wasn’t asked moved or copied when I started the Windows VM.

[Timothy Campbell]

I also installed 13.6.1 today.  It did fix the problem with VMware complaining that the BootCamp disk was not compatible (refusing to let me start that VM).  

The question asking if I copied or moved the VM went away when I went into the macOS System Settings and disabled "WiFi Private Address" (which causes the mac to change it's WiFi hardware address on a regular basis.  This seems to make VMware think it is not running on the same computer since it sees a network interface with a new hardware address.)

[Technogeezer]

That's an interesting observation. I've long suspected but could not prove that witi MAC addresses are part of the calculation of an identifier that Fusion uses to determine whether a VM has been copied or moved. You just might have confirmed my suspicions.

 In Sequoia, Apple added an option to rotate MAC addresses for a WiFi network every 2 weeks. That's different than "fixed", that configures a "random" MAC address for the Wi-Fi network that's different  than the hardware MAC address and doesn't change it unless you forget the network on the device  

Would be nice if VMware told us how that ID is calculated. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[RARelph]

I spoke too soon... And I'm going to switch to the thread on repetitive move/copy from this one. I think the unactivated Windows is an expected result of choosing copy.

[Katsuyasu Kubota]

I updated to 13.6.1 on macOS 15 Sequoia, but for some reason the message "VMware fusion core update has been suspended(Actually This Japanese message) " appears and never finishes. Do you know how to avoid this?

[Technogeezer]

can ypu post a quick duppprt bundle? Perhaps it can give us an idea why the update is pausing. 

You might want to try downloading the Fusion 13.6.1 disk image installerfrom Broadcom's software download center. Then move your existing VMware Fusion application to the trash, and install Fusion from the download. 

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[Katsuyasu Kubota]

Acording to your advice, I  tried downloading the Fusion 13.6.1 disk image installerfrom Broadcom's software download center. Then installed Fusion from the download,. but without delete current VMware 13.6.0 at that time. finally,  It worked correctly. Thank you very much.