Features of Windows 11 VM on Mac with Intel vs. Apple silicon
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Features of Windows 11 VM on Mac with Intel vs. Apple silicon

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Article ID: 315609

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Updated On:

Products

VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

Important differences between the experience of running Windows 11 on Macs with Intel vs Apple silicon.

Resolution

Important differences between the experience of running Windows 11 on Macs with Intel vs Apple silicon.

To preface, Fusion is able to create virtual machines by making explicit use of specialized CPU features and operating system APIs which Apple provides. It does not mimic or “emulate” a different CPU for virtual machines. As such, an operating system must be designed for the type of CPU it will be running on, regardless of if it’s virtualized or physically installed.

“Apple silicon” is a new “System on a Chip” (SOC) design from Apple which does not use the Intel™ CPU or its design which is often referred to as “x86”. However, the architecture of the CPU in the SOC is compatible with Arm™, Inc. architecture. This means that on Macs with Apple silicon, Fusion can only run operating systems that are arm64 or aarch64 based (often used interchangeably).

This holds true for Windows on Macs with Apple silicon in that you must use the Arm variant of Windows 11.

  • Because there are no Arm variants of older Windows operating systems, such as Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, etc. they will not function on Macs with Apple silicon.
  • While Windows 10 for Arm does exist, it is not expected to be fully supported in the same way that Windows 11 for Arm is, and the built-in “Get Windows” feature only supports Windows 11.
  • Windows 11 for Arm does provide an application-based emulation layer for running Intel-based Windows applications, including games, that use DirectX 11 3D graphics. Fusion 13.5 and later supports this explicitly.


Development of Fusion’s features on Apple silicon is an ongoing project, and at this time there are known limitations when comparing the x86 and the Arm variants of Windows 11.

The below table illustrates those differences.

Feature

Fusion 13.x for

Intel

Fusion 13.6 for

Intel

Fusion 13.0 for Apple silicon Fusion 13.5 for Apple silicon Fusion 13.6 for Apple silicon
"Get Windows" feature No No No Yes Yes
Run x86 operating systems Yes Yes No No No
Run arm64/aarch64 operating systems No No Yes Yes Yes
VMware Tools Installer Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Shared Folders  Yes Yes No No

Shared Folders is supported only for Linux based Guests on Fusion ARM


Drag-Drop Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Copy-Paste Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Unity Mode Yes No No No No
DirectX 11 Graphics Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Virtual Networking Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Snapshots Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Clones (Pro only) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Connect to vSphere Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
“Easy Install” Guest OS Yes Yes No No No
Auto-Fit Resolution Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Network Simulation Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vctl Yes Yes No No No
OVF Import/Export Yes Yes No No No
REST API Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vmrun Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Application Menu  Yes No Yes Yes No
Run older Windows OS (XP, 7, 8) Yes Yes No No No
vmcli Yes Yes No No Yes