VMware has lost Windows VM, now only have .iso in folder "VMWIsoImages"

[Chico Woodhill]

I don't know what I did wrong but here's my story:

I recently moved from an Intel Mac to a Silicon M3 Mac and installed VMware Fusion version 13.6.0. I created a new VM, loaded Windows 11 and fresh installed all my applications and files. Everything was working beautifully, very impressed with VMWare Fusion.

A month passed without me using Fusion. When I next tried to open my VM, my VM (as I remember it) is no longer in my user folder, but there is a folder called "VMWIsoImages" (/Users/username/Virtual Machines.localized/VMWIsoImages). Inside that folder is a file: "Windows11_22631.2861_Professional_en-us_arm64.iso". It is 6.03 GB in size which is close to the size of the VM I recall having created.

VMware Fusion won't open this .iso file directly. How do I load this file to run as a virtual machine? And what did I do to lose my original VM and end up with this .iso file?

Thanks for any assistance...

[Technogeezer]

The .iso file is a Windows installation image. From where it's located and its name, it's most likely the installation ISO that was created when you selected "Get Windows from Microsoft". It was used to install Windows to a virtual machine, and is left in that folder on the off chance that you'd want to create a new Windows 11 virtual machine.

What's puzzling is that your virtual machine should be located somewhere on your Mac's hard drive.

Let's try the easy thing first before telling you to create a new VM and re-install Windows:.

Open the virtual machine library (from the Fusion menu bar, choose Window > Virtual Machine Library) and then see if your VM is listed there. If it is, you should be able to open it from there. If you want to know where it is, right click on the name of the VM in the left hand panel and select "Show in Finder".

If that doesn't work, open Spotlight on the Mac and search for "kind:VMbundle". If your VM is still on your hard drive, it should find it. If you find it, you should be able to open it from the Spotlight dialog and it'll be added to the Virtual Machine Library.

If Spotlight can't find it, something other than Fusion could have removed it from your hard drive. You'll need to create a new virtual machine from the Fusion menu, and drag the ISO file you found on your disk from the Finder to the "Select an Installation Source" dialog. From that point you'll reinstall Windows like you did the first time.

[Chico Woodhill]

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Yes, the only thing I can figure is that my VM got deleted somehow. Strange, I can't find it anywhere, including backups, but that's the most reasonable answer.