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