It is possible that for some VMs, you want the Display settings to be different then their default.
This is quite handy if you always want to use the same type of configuration for your VMs their Console Windows or when the VMs are in full screen. This Means that during the creation of a VM, it will start with the default Display settings that you have set up here in your preferences. In the Display settings of VMware Fusion, you can configure the default display behavior of the VMs, both for “Full Screen” Windows as in a “Single Window”. This can be found VMware Fusion Preferences… Display. In VMware Fusion you can change the default Display behavior of all VMs. Since I have a macbook, I use VMware Fusion. In this post, we are going to take a look of how we can change the screen and resolution settings within VMware Fusion & Workstation and the effect the different options can have with each other. Going back to the basics, this was actually behaving as designed.
I found out that the problem was in the VM Display Settings. Adjusting the Resolution didn’t work either since it would change the screen size of the vm and leave a big black screen around it for all the unusable space (In full Screen Mode). But since it was so zoomed out, I couldn’t say that I was enjoying the high resolution. I had one of the highest Resolution on a Retina Display. After the reinstall, the screen resolution looked kinda weird. So, first post done, hopefully more to come.For one issue (documented here), I had to reinstall the VMware tools on a Windows VM.
Next step, download a full original copy of the OS, no wait, write about it in my dead WordPress page, and hopefully follow this post up with multiple small posts explaining how I did all the above in details, with snapshots, versions of software used, download locations, and command lines. With some luck and a lot of searching, I found a way to disable the hDPI mode and finally I have the OS running at a resolution where I can actually see things. unzip, mount, install, reboot, and bam… the resolution is set, and then it jumps back to a high DPI lower resolution, which was something I never heard of before having not used any Retina display Macs before. Finding it online was a bit difficult, but using the trusty google search, nothing is impossible.
So install VMware Tools, that should be easy, menu -> vm -> Install VMware Tools… Nope, not working, unlocker failed to download the VMware Tools package for some reason. Now with the Mac OS freshly installed and running, the next step is to get to see things on the screen, I needed to set the resolution to the max my monitor will support, so, 1920 x 1080. Started up the VM and boom, the progress bar and then the setup screen. Then of course use unlocker to enable booing Mac OS.
I was using vmware workstation 14 at this point and thought it would be a good idea to upgrade it to the latest version. The download and install took around 3 hours with my very fast internet (not), and the vm rebooted to the apple logo, and then nothing… It was stuck there. Downloading the OS from the App Store yielded only the small sized installer, so I decided to perform an install from that onto a new virtual disk. The VM I had was running OS X 10.13 – High Sierra.
I don’t like using vm images or ISO downloaded from the internet in fear that they may have been compromised, so I like working with the original installers that I have downloaded from the App Store directly. This time it is the latest available version OS X 10.15 – Catalina.Īfter having done this almost half a dozen times before, I will usually find an old vm lying around on a spare disk which I can bring up and download the latest Mac OS from the Apple Store. Then I find just about enough spare time to start playing with that again. My main computer was a MacBook for a little over 7 years, but unfortunately these days have passed and my existing MacBook is resting comfortably in a corner on my desk, sadly collecting dust.Įvery now and then I decide to run another VM with the latest OS, maybe bring back to life my old photo library and devonthink notes. I have always loved the Apple Mac OS, ever since I first used System 7 (Mac OS 7) back in the early 1990’s.
Setting up Mac OS on a vm running on Windows is something I have done several times for one reason or the other, but mainly because I miss using the OS.