Starting Windows in VMWare Fusion

By Tony, 18 January, 2024

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi. I am running VMWare Fusion on Mac OS Sonoma. I am trying to run Windows 11 ARM. I was able to download and install windows, but When I open VMWare and press startup, windows doesn't turn on. For a few seconds, Voiceover shows the word suspend instead of startup, but ultimately, it goes back to the startup button. What do I need to do to start windows? Thanks.

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Comments

By JC on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 - 09:24

There is a bug that is preventing the windows operating system to crash while voiceover is running. The workaround that you will need to use for now until the VMware developers fix it is to completely turn off voiceover when you use windows, then when you are done using windows, turn voiceover back on.

By Sebby on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 - 09:24

If you need more advanced functionality while your VM is running and you don't mind the limitations, you could consider UTM. While disabling VoiceOver does work, it's sometimes infeasible, so this is the alternative.

By Sebby on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 - 09:24

It's another virtualisation app, based on QEMU, which is an Open Source machine emulator. The UTM home page is here, and it has both direct download (free) and Mac App Store (paid) links. The only advantage of going with the store is automatic updates; it's identical in every other way, so your payment just goes toward supporting the developer, which I am happy to do. You'll want to read the documentation and familiarise yourself with it, it's certainly quite advanced software, however it will let you run any type of machine, minus a few commercial benefits like accelerated graphics on Windows. I do hope VMware and Apple pull their fingers out and sort this situation, but in the meantime, this absolutely works and is probably the nicest and most advanced Open Source frontend I've used in a long while, certainly better even than Virtual Box.

The other option is Parallels, but you need VOCR to use that. This is your choice to make, but IMO, unless you really need it, I wouldn't bother.