Guest architecture support boundary for VMware Fusion on Apple Silicon hosts
0 reputation · 31 May 2022, 00:51 UTC
I am evaluating whether VMware Fusion can host a legacy x86_64 workload on an Apple Silicon Mac. Because Apple Silicon does not expose x86 virtualization extensions, I need to know whether Fusion includes a supported emulation or compatibility path for x86_64 guests on that platform, or whether guest support is limited to ARM64 across all releases that run on Apple Silicon hosts.
The constraint is that the application depends on an x86_64 guest image, while the only available host is Apple Silicon based. I am also unsure which Fusion versions document different guest architecture policies between Intel and Apple Silicon hosts, and whether any configuration setting or plug-in alters the supported guest architectures.
Which Fusion releases on Apple Silicon hosts support x86_64 guest operating systems, if any? Is there a documented configuration or compatibility mode that permits x86_64 guest execution on Apple Silicon? What is the authoritative method to confirm the supported guest architectures for a specific Fusion version?
