How to install macOS Big Sur on VMWare Player/Workstation

Master Disaster · December 13, 2020

Preface

This guide REQUIRES you to have a working Mac or access to an existing macOS install. Obtaining the macOS operating system files outside of an existing macOS installation is software piracy, as such it is against the forums ToS to provide help with obtaining macOS IN ANY OTHER WAY than the method I will outline in this guide.

PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME OR ANYBODY ELSE FOR HELP REGARDING OBTAINING macOS ON LINUX OR WINDOWS, YOU WILL BE IGNORED!!

Prerequisites

1: A fairly modern CPU with X86-64 support (Intel or AMD is fine)

2: A PC running Windows or Linux with a MINIMUM of 16GB of RAM (The instructions in this guide will be for Windows, for Linux its almost identical)

3: Access to an existing macOS install to obtain the installation files

4: Some way of transferring the ISO from macOS to your host machine (shared folder, 32 GB USB flash drive or external HDD)

5: A copy of VMWare Player 16 or VMWare Workstation 16 (EXSi is also mentioned as being supported however I haven't tested it)

6: VMWare macOS Unlocker

7: Notepad++ (Optional)

8: Virtualisation support must be enabled in your systems UEFI

Basic setup

1: Install VMWare in the usual way

2: Download and extract VMWare macOS Unlocker

3: Open the extracted folder and run "win-install.bat" as administrator

4: Wait, it might take up to 5 minutes to find and download the macOS VMWare Tools ISO

5: When the command prompt goes away we are ready to proceed with the next step

Create the installation ISO

1: On your existing macOS installation download Big Sur from the app store

2: When the download finishes Big Sur setup will run, quit the installer back to desktop

3: Open Terminal

4: Create a blank image by issuing the following command (type your password when prompted) and hitting Enter

sudo hdiutil create -o /tmp/BigSur -size 16384m -volname BigSur -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J

5: Mount the image you just created

sudo hdiutil attach /tmp/BigSur.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/BigSur

6: Next use the Create Install Media command to create a Big Sur installer on the image you just mounted

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/BigSur --nointeraction

7: Unmount the image

hdiutil eject -force /Volumes/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur

8: Convert the DMG to a CDR and move it to your desktop

hdiutil convert /tmp/BigSur.dmg -format UDTO -o ~/Desktop/BigSur

9: Rename the CDR to ISO

mv -v ~/Desktop/BigSur.cdr ~/Desktop/BigSur.iso

10: Clean up temporary files left over from Create Install Media (optional)

sudo rm -fv /tmp/BigSur.dmg

11; Using whatever method you choose transfer the ISO from your desktop to your host machine

Create the VM

1: Run VMWare, create a new machine, name the VM & select macOS > Big Sur 11.1 as the Operating System

2: Create a new HDD image as per your requirements (80GB Minimum)

3: Click Finish then click Customise Hardware

4: For my machine I gave it 4 of my Ryzen 3800X cores and 8GB of RAM, you do whatever you need

5: Click on Video and enable 3D Acceleration (ignore the warning, not using this option forces 3MB total VRAM, even with it you can only get 128MB)

6: Delete the existing SATA Hard Drive, create a new NVMe Hard Drive and point it to the HDD image you created in step 2

7: Set up any other options as you need them but don't change any other hardware, macOS works OOTB with the default sound card and NIC

8: Point the virtual CD drive to the ISO we created earlier in the guide

9: When you're finished close the Customise Hardware page

If you have an Intel CPU you can now skip straight to Install Big Sur. If you have an AMD Ryzen CPU please carry on with Customising the VM Config

Customising the VM Config

Only follow this section if you have an AMD CPU, otherwise skip on to Install Big Sur.

Throughout this section I will use *vmname*, this refers to the name you gave your VM when you created it. For example if you called the VM "macOS VM" then replace *vmname* with macOS VM.

1: Open the folder containing your VM Files (Default on Windows 10 is /Documents/Virtual Machines/*vmname*)

2: Locate the file called *vmname*.vmx and open it in your favourite text editor

3: Scroll down to the very bottom of the file and on a new, blank line paste the following

cpuid.0.eax = "0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:1011"
cpuid.0.ebx = "0111:0101:0110:1110:0110:0101:0100:0111"
cpuid.0.ecx = "0110:1100:0110:0101:0111:0100:0110:1110"
cpuid.0.edx = "0100:1001:0110:0101:0110:1110:0110:1001"
cpuid.1.eax = "0000:0000:0000:0001:0000:0110:0111:0001"
cpuid.1.ebx = "0000:0010:0000:0001:0000:1000:0000:0000"
cpuid.1.ecx = "1000:0010:1001:1000:0010:0010:0000:0011"
cpuid.1.edx = “0000:0111:1000:1011:1111:1011:1111:1111”
featureCompat.enable = "TRUE"

4: Save the file and close it

Install Big Sur

1: Start the VM

2: macOS installation should fire up

3: Install macOS as per your requirements

Install VMWare Tools

VMWare won't automount the Darwin VMWare Tools images on a Windows or Linux host so you have to locate it manually

1: Once setup has finished and you're on the desktop of macOS click VM > Settings (on the VMWare Toolbar)

2: Click CD/DVD

3: In the ISO Image File section click the Browse button

4: Navigate to your VMWare installation folder (default is C:\Program Files (X86)\VMware\VMWare Workstation or C:\Program Files (X86)\VMware\VMWare Player)

5: Locate the file called darwin.iso and double click it

6: If its not already ticked then click the Connect checkbox

7: VMWare tools setup will mount automatically

8: Before running the setup script open System Preferences > Security & Privacy, click the padlock icon and enter your password to unlock edit mode

9: Run the VMWare Tools setup script and follow it through

10: About half way through a warning will pop up about VMWare Extensions, on the Security & Privacy page click Allow

10a: If you don't click allow fast enough VMWare tools might fail to install, if this happens just run it through again (as long as you've already clicked Allow it will work)

11: Reboot

12: Enjoy running macOS Big Sur in VMWare

What works and doesn't work

Most basic applications I have tested work. Office, Virtual DJ, Steam (though I haven't tried running any games) and Ableton Live.

I have not tested any of the built in Apple apps.

I have not signed in to an Apple account (and I would advise you don't either).

I'm going to say that macOS virtualisation stuff (like Parallels Desktop) will not work though I haven't tested any.

For whatever reason it is impossible to give the VM more than 128MB of VRAM, I have tried everything I could find to change the value, nothing works.

With VMWare Tools installed drag and drop works, shared folders work, mouse integration works and dynamic resolution scaling works.