13 replies to this topic

[luckman212]

I have a working install of 10.6.8 running under Workstation 7.1 for many months.  It is pretty smooth.   But I wanted to try out WS 8.0 -- I see there is no Unlocker yet but if I install WS8 will my old VM no longer work (I used Albert's Unlocker method).   Just wondering, before I go ahead and install the trial.... I do use the Mac vm fairly regularly so I wouldn't want to be without it for too long!  

[MSoK]

luckman212, on Sep 15 2011, 05:10 PM, said:

I have a working install of 10.6.8 running under Workstation 7.1 for many months.  It is pretty smooth.   But I wanted to try out WS 8.0 -- I see there is no Unlocker yet but if I install WS8 will my old VM no longer work (I used Albert's Unlocker method).   Just wondering, before I go ahead and install the trial.... I do use the Mac vm fairly regularly so I wouldn't want to be without it for too long!  

Luckman,

I suspect the answer is no, as the relevant files will be locked, so no support for OS X, I am sure the new Workstation "Unlocker" will appear in the next week or so, so stick with 7.1.4 until the W8 "Unlocker" is released, will probably save you the grief, especially if you use your OS X VM regularly. Also with Albert's "Unlocker" OS X Snow runs very well under W7, so not expecting significant enhancements in W8, the main feature will be native support for Lion.

[luckman212]

Thanks MSoK !  Will stay tuned for a new Unlocker.  Good advice.

[zef]

luckman212, on Sep 15 2011, 06:46 PM, said:

Thanks MSoK !  Will stay tuned for a new Unlocker.  Good advice.

Hey guys!

Just installed Workstation 8.0 yesterday and the old VMs are still working pretty well (10.6.8 and 10.7.1). I never used any unlockers.
The great news, that i got working sound under 10.7.1 using stock AppleHDA.kext + added sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio" entry in .vmx. The same trick didn't work for 10.6.8.

Bye,
zef

[luckman212]

zef, on Sep 16 2011, 07:49 AM, said:

Just installed Workstation 8.0 yesterday and the old VMs are still working pretty well (10.6.8 and 10.7.1). I never used any unlockers.
The great news, that i got working sound under 10.7.1 using stock AppleHDA.kext + added sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio" entry in .vmx. The same trick didn't work for 10.6.8.

hey Zef thats good news!  did you follow any sort of guide on installing 10.7.1 or, how did you do it without using unlocker?

[Donk]

zef, on Sep 16 2011, 12:49 PM, said:

Hey guys!

Just installed Workstation 8.0 yesterday and the old VMs are still working pretty well (10.6.8 and 10.7.1). I never used any unlockers.
The great news, that i got working sound under 10.7.1 using stock AppleHDA.kext + added sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio" entry in .vmx. The same trick didn't work for 10.6.8.

Bye,
zef

That's interesting, but was it darwin.iso based? Sound is good news.

[zef]

luckman212, on Sep 16 2011, 02:16 PM, said:

hey Zef thats good news!  did you follow any sort of guide on installing 10.7.1 or, how did you do it without using unlocker?

I created a Lion installer iso image from a working system using the BaseSystem.dmg + Packages folder method, then added a recent Chameleon cdboot + Preboot.dmg with Disabler and FakeSMC kexts + npci=0x2000 flags.

The next step was creating an Other-64 workstation 8 vm with LSI controller. Removed the floppy, added an USB controller, moved the CD drive to SCSI 0:1.

Then changed the vmx with these two entries:

guestOS = "darwin10-64"
sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

Now you can power up and install your system, after it finishes boot it and add FakeSMC.kext to SLE + add npci=0x2000 kernel flags to LPS/com.apple.Boot.plist + install vmware tools extracted from Fusion 4.0.1.

Power down the VM. The final step is changing the firmware to EFI in the vmx:

firmware = "efi"

Enjoy

Donk, on Sep 16 2011, 03:02 PM, said:

That's interesting, but was it darwin.iso based? Sound is good news.

For installation I used a minimal Chameleon, but later moved to EFI firmware so the vm can boot itself without any helper images.

Update:

guestOS = "darwin11-64" or "darwin11" works too

[luckman212]

nice, going to have to try that this weekend!  

[me@home]

I was able to boot up my 10.5.8 (no server) in VMware8. Before I used the "hacked" 7.1 to install any OSX version.
I can not boot up my 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.
I have this in vmx file:
...
smc.present = "TRUE"
ich7m.present = "TRUE"
firmware = "efi"
roamingVM.exitBehavior = "go"
displayName = "Mac OS X Snow Leopard"
guestOS = "darwin10-64"
nvram = "Mac OS X Snow Leopard.nvram"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
...

Do you have other settings, can you post your vmx file ?

[Zenith432]

I installed Workstation 8 for Windows and was able to get OS X 10.7.1 running based on zef's comments.

• No Unlocker.
  
• Installed fakesmc.kext in /System/Library/Extensions.
  
• In VMX file
  

  guestOS = "darwin11-64"
  firmware = "efi"
  hpet0.present = "TRUE"
  

• Added boot flag "npci=0x2000".  [Used "sudo nvram boot-args='npci=0x2000 <other flags>']

Other notes

• guestos = "freebsd-64" now sets a LAPIC version of 0x14, so it's possible to boot vanilla kernel with this guestos    When booting with this guestos, it's necessary to have NullCPUPowerManagement.kext or Disabler.kext installed.
  
• The ATA device is still 0x71118086 - an old device, so it's necessary to have LegacyAppleIntelPIIXATA.kext in order to get IDE support.
  
• sound.virtualDev="hdaudio" works on Lion with native kext as zef mentioned, but the audio stutter is still there   I verified this with a 30-sec pure sine-wave tone.

I've also got OS 10.5.8, 10.6.8 working on same host.

[Donk]

Zenith432, on Sep 18 2011, 04:52 PM, said:

I installed Workstation 8 for Windows and was able to get OS X 10.7.1 running based on zef's comments.

• No Unlocker.
  
• Installed fakesmc.kext in /System/Library/Extensions.
  
• In VMX file
  

  guestOS = "darwin11-64"
  firmware = "efi"
  hpet0.present = "TRUE"
  

• Added boot flag "npci=0x2000".  [Used "sudo nvram boot-args='npci=0x2000 <other flags>']

Other notes

• guestos = "freebsd-64" now sets a LAPIC version of 0x14, so it's possible to boot vanilla kernel with this guestos    When booting with this guestos, it's necessary to have NullCPUPowerManagement.kext or Disabler.kext installed.
  
• The ATA device is still 0x71118086 - an old device, so it's necessary to have LegacyAppleIntelPIIXATA.kext in order to get IDE support.
  
• sound.virtualDev="hdaudio" works on Lion with native kext as zef mentioned, but the audio stutter is still there   I verified this with a 30-sec pure sine-wave tone.

I've also got OS 10.5.8, 10.6.8 working on same host.

I've just started on the unlocker and this won't be necessary when it is done. As for now it is the best way to get it working. The npci=0x2000 is still useful though as it speeds the start-up time.

[Zenith432]

Donk, on Sep 19 2011, 01:51 PM, said:

I've just started on the unlocker and this won't be necessary when it is done. As for now it is the best way to get it working. The npci=0x2000 is still useful though as it speeds the start-up time.

As I recall, Albert's original unlocker does 3 things

• Enable visibility of the guestos darwin options in the UI [in vmwarebase.dll].
  
• Circumvent the "guestos not macos server" errors when booting with legacy bios.
  
• Implant the SMC keys inside vmware-vmx.

Of these, only the third is critical - so fakesmc doesn't have to be implanted into the install.  The first is nice, but cosmetic.  The second is unnecessary, because when booting efi firmware, the "not macos server" errors go away without a patch.  The efi firmare in the latest hypervisor is much faster, has many new commands, and is probably the best way to go over legacy bios anyhow.
I've checked vmware-vmx in Fusion, and the decryption keys are not in the image.  I guess they get loaded dynamically from the host system.

[Donk]

Zenith432, on Sep 19 2011, 01:34 PM, said:

As I recall, Albert's original unlocker does 3 things

• Enable visibility of the guestos darwin options in the UI [in vmwarebase.dll].
  
• Circumvent the "guestos not macos server" errors when booting with legacy bios.
  
• Implant the SMC decryption keys inside vmware-vmx.

Of these, only the third is critical - so fakesmc doesn't have to be implanted into the install.  The first is nice, but cosmetic.  The second is unnecessary, because when booting efi firmware, the "not macos server" errors go away without a patch.  The efi firmare in the latest hypervisor is much faster, has many new commands, and is probably the best way to go over legacy bios anyhow.
I've checked vmware-vmx in Fusion, and the decryption keys are not in the image.  I guess they get loaded dynamically from the host system.

Correct - and I have already done these 3 changes for the betas just need to do it for release versions.

[trentfox]

Does anyone know if there is a VMX file in VMware Fusion 4?  When I do a Spotlight search for this on my Mac, I can't find one.