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tubular

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2011
1,326
3,204
So, apparently it's theoretically possible to run MacOS in a VM, but sometimes "theoretically possible" is a way of saying "pragmatically impossible." I've seen some deep-dive sites describing various eighty-seven-simple-dance-steps methods for how to do this with High Sierra and the Windows counterpart to VMWare Fusion. Has anybody here actually managed to do something like this and have it work?

I've been able to i.e. set up my Windows 10 box to dual-boot (Windows and Ubuntu), but I don't expect to be able to actually boot directly into MacOS. But I'm curious about what it would take to run it in a VM on my gaming machine, with the idea that the faster processor and bounteous memory will compensate for the performance overhead of virtualization.

Has anybody here done this with High Sierra and lived to tell the tale?
 

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
539
So, apparently it's theoretically possible to run MacOS in a VM, but sometimes "theoretically possible" is a way of saying "pragmatically impossible." I've seen some deep-dive sites describing various eighty-seven-simple-dance-steps methods for how to do this with High Sierra and the Windows counterpart to VMWare Fusion. Has anybody here actually managed to do something like this and have it work?

I've been able to i.e. set up my Windows 10 box to dual-boot (Windows and Ubuntu), but I don't expect to be able to actually boot directly into MacOS. But I'm curious about what it would take to run it in a VM on my gaming machine, with the idea that the faster processor and bounteous memory will compensate for the performance overhead of virtualization.

Has anybody here done this with High Sierra and lived to tell the tale?

- Apple does not allow installing macOS on non-Apple hardware.
- Hypervisors from companies like VMware can be run on non-Apple operating systems on both Macs and regular PCs. Naturally, these hypervisors respect Apple's wish, meaning they allow the installation of macOS only if the hypervisor can confirm it's running on a Mac.
- Third-party tools exist that make the hypervisor believe it's running on a Mac even though it's not.

Running such a tool is a single step; the other steps involved are basically the ones you would take anyway to manually install macOS in a VM.
 

turbineseaplane

macrumors P6
Mar 19, 2008
17,266
39,771
- Apple does not allow installing macOS on non-Apple hardware.
- Hypervisors from companies like VMware can be run on non-Apple operating systems on both Macs and regular PCs. Naturally, these hypervisors respect Apple's wish, meaning they allow the installation of macOS only if the hypervisor can confirm it's running on a Mac.
- Third-party tools exist that make the hypervisor believe it's running on a Mac even though it's not.

Running such a tool is a single step; the other steps involved are basically the ones you would take anyway to manually install macOS in a VM.

So does that mean you could create the macOS VM on a real Mac and then copy the created VM over to a Windows PC and run it just fine on VM software?
 

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
539
So does that mean you could create the macOS VM on a real Mac and then copy the created VM over to a Windows PC and run it just fine on VM software?
Well, as long as you bypassed the Apple-respecting software lock which otherwise prevents not only installing but also running macOS on non-Apple hardware. But then there’s really no point in creating the VM on a Mac, is there?
 
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bigbird888

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2009
21
6
Singapore
Yes. Just follow this: https://techsviewer.com/install-macos-high-sierra-vmware-windows/


So, apparently it's theoretically possible to run MacOS in a VM, but sometimes "theoretically possible" is a way of saying "pragmatically impossible." I've seen some deep-dive sites describing various eighty-seven-simple-dance-steps methods for how to do this with High Sierra and the Windows counterpart to VMWare Fusion. Has anybody here actually managed to do something like this and have it work?

I've been able to i.e. set up my Windows 10 box to dual-boot (Windows and Ubuntu), but I don't expect to be able to actually boot directly into MacOS. But I'm curious about what it would take to run it in a VM on my gaming machine, with the idea that the faster processor and bounteous memory will compensate for the performance overhead of virtualization.

Has anybody here done this with High Sierra and lived to tell the tale?
 
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tubular

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2011
1,326
3,204
I'll experiment and let you folks know how it turns out. I've just created (in my Mac) a VM using Fusion and installed High Sierra into it; that was the easy part, since I already had the install media on USB. The interesting part is going to be about convincing the hypervisor (VMWare or whatev) on the PC not to freak.
 

bigbird888

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2009
21
6
Singapore
Why do you need to create the VM on your mac?

I'll experiment and let you folks know how it turns out. I've just created (in my Mac) a VM using Fusion and installed High Sierra into it; that was the easy part, since I already had the install media on USB. The interesting part is going to be about convincing the hypervisor (VMWare or whatev) on the PC not to freak.
 
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tubular

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2011
1,326
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I don't *have* to, but since I've already got the High Sierra install image here and VMWare here, why download it again just to have it somewhere else?
 

Alaska_guy

macrumors regular
Mar 30, 2018
137
12
Yes, you can run a VMware macOS on a PC (However there are some pretty stringent legal stuff as of late to persuade people not to do so). Also, the whole you need to run a MacOS on an apple device is a grey area at best. When I was trained by a very intellectual apple individual who has written many of their training books years ago... Apple decided to make the switch from their architecture and they were sourcing parts from dell. So you could technically run on a dell and not void their license agreement. I am not 100% positive where they are sourcing parts from these days, but back then straight from apple employees who met with Steve Jobs on a regular basis, it was a non issue. We had dell work laptops that were running OSX natively back in 2006? and I was guided by their main programmers and trainer how to get it to work properly. We had sessions where we tried to decrypt the keychain and other cool things, it was impossible back then. I would have to look in my archives, but I may even have pictures of the training sessions. I need to look at my non compete agreement before I post stuff like that, but I am pretty sure it would be OK as its been a pretty long time ago.

There are some tools out there, or you can edit the .vmx or .vmxf files manually and add lines to get the OS to work properly within VMware. I converted my old mans 2008 Mac Pro to VM as his was no longer supported by Apple and couldn't upgrade further but wanted to keep his data. With VMWare you can do some tom foolery to get it updated to the latest OS. We decided to create a test using his 2008 mac just to see if it was possible and it was possible. We then decided to delete the updated OS within VMWare as we did not want to void any licensing agreements, especially since I used to contract for Apple.

Just beware, this is a very grey area.
[doublepost=1522887464][/doublepost]I will share this tidbit of information.

The easiest way we found to get your existing mac on a PC version of VMWare was to install clean within a PC. (Make sure you use the same OS version as on your current existing mac). Take a time machine backup of your current mac, put it on the network or any other method that suits you... Then use time machine on the newly created mvware machine to restore the files from your existing Macintosh.

I want to be clear... I am not condoning this, but figure I could share some of my knowledge since it took me a good 4 hours to find a method that worked flawlessly every time and could be repeated if you wanted to apply this to any Macintosh based computer. He also has a MacBook pro and it works basically the same way there.

I am sure other people have done this before as we did this about a year or two ago.
 
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Starlights

macrumors regular
Jan 22, 2011
133
39
So, apparently it's theoretically possible to run MacOS in a VM, but sometimes "theoretically possible" is a way of saying "pragmatically impossible." I've seen some deep-dive sites describing various eighty-seven-simple-dance-steps methods for how to do this with High Sierra and the Windows counterpart to VMWare Fusion. Has anybody here actually managed to do something like this and have it work?

I've been able to i.e. set up my Windows 10 box to dual-boot (Windows and Ubuntu), but I don't expect to be able to actually boot directly into MacOS. But I'm curious about what it would take to run it in a VM on my gaming machine, with the idea that the faster processor and bounteous memory will compensate for the performance overhead of virtualization.

Has anybody here done this with High Sierra and lived to tell the tale?
I regularly run Mac H Sierra on Win 7 machine via VMW Player. I also sometimes concurrently run Kali or Fidora. I had installed Sierra originally but then got prompted by the OS that a new OS update was available. Followed normal os update process. Allocated 8gb Ram to OSX and it runs smooth.
[doublepost=1525879460][/doublepost]
But then there’s really no point in creating the VM on a Mac, is there?

Ofcourse there is. Sandboxed OS for security that can be removed and reinstalled repeatedly without any effort. Will be getting a 2018 MBP just for this.
 
Last edited:

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
539
Ofcourse there is. Sandboxed OS for security that can be removed and reinstalled repeatedly without any effort. Will be getting a 2018 MBP just for this.

It didn’t look as though that was the OP’s intended use case, but I agree with you in general.
 

ocnitsa

macrumors 6502a
Jan 24, 2011
508
953
On fairly reputable blog sites there are articles that tell you how to do it with links to images you can use for the pre-patched Sierra installations. Literally, all one has to do is find the article and then use the links...it requires a big download for the image.

As far as I remember, upgrading to High Sierra didn't break anything and was easy as a normal installation. The only thing I never got working was Messages functionality in Mac OS.

In my XPS 15, I had 8 GB of RAM allocated to Apple and 2 cores of the CPU. It worked great. I had a dual monitor system with one screen showing Mac OS in the VM at full screen and the other Windows 10 in a full screen. The cursor would move seemlessly from one OS to the other. The only changes I made was turning off some animations in Mac OS.

For my types of usage, I began using the Windows 10 environment more and more and the VM was just a novelty. I am back to OSX now, but I don't know for how long. I may do the VM thing again depending on how MBPs end up developing.
 

steviewhy

macrumors regular
Oct 12, 2011
112
2
Anyone managed to install macOS (Sierra, High Sierra) in VirtualBox 5.2.x under Linux?

BTW: VirtualBox 5.2.16 has just been released (17-Jul-2018)
I have Sierra running on my Debian 9 Stretch machine right now and am going to try upgrading it to High Sierra and possibly Mojave if possible.
*EDIT* can't update to High Sierra because computer is missing a firmware partition.
Sierra.png
 

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
539
I have Sierra running on my Debian 9 Stretch machine right now and am going to try upgrading it to High Sierra and possibly Mojave if possible.
*EDIT* can't update to High Sierra because computer is missing a firmware partition. View attachment 774508
I just skimmed the readme, but it seems as though it’s possible to get it running if you switch from VirtualBox to KVM/QEMU: https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM.
 
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