Fusion on the new iMac with the M4 chip

VMWare Fusion is now free for non-commercial use.

As I stated, you will have to use the Windows for ARM preview. You can not run Windows for X86 on an M series Mac. The Mx processors are ARM based.

You can download Windows for ARM from the Microsoft Insider site, but you will have to do some manual conversion to get it to work.

It’s not horribly complicated.

https://blog.brianbaldock.net/win11arm-on-macos

If you’re referring to VMWare Fusion, yes. However…

If you want to run Windows in VMWare Fusion, you will need to run the Windows for ARM preview. You can not run Windows for Intel on an M processor based Mac.

fusionwi wrote:

VMWare Fusion creates the Windows operating system on my current iMac with an intel processor.

Virtual machines use the same type of machine language as the host computer on which they run. That lets the host computer's CPU run most application code in the virtual machine natively, at full speed. This is why virtual machines offer higher performance than emulators, where host software interprets each of the guest's machine language instructions on the fly.

So Intel Macs have Intel VMs, and Apple Silicon Macs have ARM VMs.

Windows 11 for ARM has its own Intel emulation, and can run some off-the-shelf Wintel applications – with some overhead, and with limitations. Neither Apple nor Microsoft support dual-booting Windows 11 for ARM on Apple Silicon Macs, so if you use Windows 11 for ARM to run Wintel applications, you would be running those inside an emulation environment that itself was running in a guest OS inside of a virtual machine.

VMware (by Broadcom) – Desktop Hypervisor – Workstation and Fusion

"Users can now enjoy the full-featured versions of Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro without requiring a purchased license key. Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro installers, now by default, provide a free personal-use license built-in. While Workstation Player and Fusion Player are no longer being sold, they will continue to function and receive product updates until the next major versions are released."

Broadcom – Fusion Community – Read this *before* buying a new Apple Silicon Mac to run Fusion

"Q7) Can I run Windows 10 or 11 virtual machine on my Apple Silicon Mac?

Windows 10, No.

Windows 11, Yes. but you must use Windows 11 ARM. Windows 11 ARM is the version of Windows supported by VMware for use with Fusion 13 on Apple Silicon Macs. Windows 11 includes a more robust Rosetta-like x86_64 translation feature that allows you to run a wide variety of applications compiled for Windows on Intel architectures."

There are a LOT of apps with "Fusion" in the name in the App Store alone. Can you be more specific, including the VERSION of the app you have?

Your best action for getting help is to contact the app developer, something we cannot do without knowing more.

How to contact an app developer - Apple Support

KiltedTim wrote:

You can download Windows for ARM from the Microsoft Insider site, but you will have to do some manual conversion to get it to work.

You might not need to go to the Microsoft Insider site too much longer.

Microsoft – Software Download – Windows 11

"Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64 devices will be made available in the coming weeks."

Have you considered talking to the developer to ask about what you need for a M4 setup?