VMware Fusion


VMware Fusion is a software hypervisor developed by VMware for Macintosh computers. VMware Fusion allows Intel-based Macs to run virtual machines with guest operating systems—such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, or a different version of macOS—within the host macOS operating system.

Overview

VMware Fusion, which uses a combination of paravirtualization and hardware virtualization made possible by the Mac transition to Intel processors in 2006, marked VMware's first entry into Macintosh-based x86 virtualization. VMware Fusion uses Intel VT present in the Intel Core microarchitecture platform. Much of the underlying technology in VMware Fusion is inherited from other VMware products, such as VMware Workstation, allowing VMware Fusion to offer features such as 64-bit and SMP support.
VMware Fusion 1.0 was released on August 6, 2007, exactly one year after being announced.
VMware Fusion can run any of hundreds of operating systems provided by the user, including many older versions of macOS, which gives users a way to run older Mac application software that can no longer be run under the current version of macOS, such as 32-bit apps and Rosetta apps.

System requirements

VersionReleasedNotes
1.0August 6, 2007First release.
1.1.0November 12, 2007Support for Leopard, Boot Camp, and improvements to DirectX support and Unity.
1.1.1January 24, 2008Various bug fixes.
1.1.2April 23, 2008Support for Time Machine and various bug fixes.
1.1.3May 30, 2008Various bug fixes.
2.0September 12, 2008Multiple Snapshots with AutoProtect, Improved Unity, DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D, and support for Mac OS X Server guests.
2.0.1November 14, 2008Various bug fixes.
2.0.2February 11, 2009Import from Parallels, supports Mac OS X Server 10.5.6 host, mounts DMG images, supports Ubuntu 8.10 in Unity mode.
2.0.3April 2, 2009Various bug fixes. Adds experimental support for Snow Leopard Developer Builds.
2.0.4April 9, 2009Fixed Host code execution vulnerability.
2.0.5June 23, 2009Support for Nehalem Mac Pro. Experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 as guest. Support for Ubuntu 9.04 as guest. Various bug fixes.
2.0.6October 1, 2009Fixed issues when running on Snow Leopard. Fixed issues with NVidia graphics cards on Mac OS X 10.6. Various bug fixes.
2.0.7April 8, 2010Fixed security issues, accepts VMware Fusion 3 license keys.
2.0.8December 2, 2010Maintenance release fixing Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project issue CVE-2010-4297.
3.0October 27, 2009Added support for Windows 7 with Aero. Full 64‑bit compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 host and guest. DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3 3D. WDDM-compatible display driver.
3.0.1December 10, 2009Improved 3D & video performance, full support for Ubuntu 9.10, 64‑bit networking subsystem, improved VMware Importer, improved VM resume times.
3.0.2February 18, 2010Fixes a problem so that the latest release of Mac OS X 10.6 Server can run in a virtual machine.
3.1.0May 25, 2010Improved 3D & video performance, improved Unity view performance and integration, USB EasyConnect, improved migration assistant, 8‑core SMP support, increased virtual hard disk size, updated operating system support.
3.1.1August 12, 2010Various bug fixes. VMware vSphere 4.1 is now supported as a guest operating system.
3.1.2December 2, 2010Fixes various bugs and security issues.
3.1.3May 31, 2011Fixes various bugs and security issues.
3.1.4April 13, 2012Fixes a bug with starting virtual machines on OS X 10.7.4.
4.0September 14, 2011Run Lion, Lion Server, Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard Server, and Leopard Server in virtual machines, up to 2.5x faster 3D graphics, add Windows programs to Launchpad, view in full screen, or in Mission Control.
4.0.1September 14, 2011Contains an update that ensures that disk buffering is enabled when set to automatic.
4.0.2September 27, 2011Addresses an issue starting virtual machines running a forthcoming version of Mac OS X Lion.
4.1.0November 17, 2011Added support for Lion's full screen mode, improved performance, and reintroduced the ability to turn on virtual machines automatically when VMware Fusion is opened.
4.1.1November 23, 2011Reintroduces the Mac OS X Server check after it was inadvertently omitted from 4.1.0.
4.1.2April 12, 2012Adds early host and guest support in preparation for the future release of OS X Mountain Lion.
4.1.3June 13, 2012Various bug fixes
4.1.4November 8, 2012Various bug fixes
5.0.0August 23, 2012VMware Fusion 5 has been revamped to take advantage of new technologies only available in Mountain Lion, Windows 8 and the latest Macs
5.0.1August 30, 2012Improved handling of USB devices
5.0.2November 8, 2012Various bug fixes
5.0.3March 14, 2013Various bug fixes
5.0.4December 11, 2013Various bug fixes
5.0.5July 3, 2014VMware Fusion 5.0.5 has been updated to the OPENSSL library version openssl- 0.9.8za where necessary to address CVE-2014-0224, CVE-2014-0198, CVE-2010-5298, and CVE-2014-3470.
6.0.0September 3, 2013
6.0.1September 19, 2013
6.0.2November 5, 2013
6.0.3April 17, 2014Maintenance release which resolved some known issues
6.0.4July 1, 2014VMware Fusion 6.0.4 has been updated to the OPENSSL library version openssl-1.0.1h where necessary to address CVE-2014-0224, CVE-2014-0198, CVE-2010-5298, and CVE-2014-3470.
6.0.5October 16, 2014VMware Fusion 6.0.5 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues
6.0.6April 23, 2015VMware Fusion 6.0.6 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues
7.0.0September 3, 2014OS X Yosemite look and feel, support of Yosemite and Windows 8.1, optimized for Haswell Intel processors with performance improvements of up to 43% vs Fusion 6, allocate up to 2 Gb of video memory per virtual machine, improved support for Retina Macs® connected to non-Retina displays, energy impact reduced by 42%, automate GPU switching for dual GPU Macs, virtual web camera compatible with iSight and external webcams, improved guest OS compatibility, over 50 new features.
7.1.1February 17, 2015
7.1.2June 15, 2015VMware Fusion 7.1.2 has been updated to use OpenSSL library version openssl-1.0.1m which addresses several OpenSSL security issues
7.1.3November 12, 2015Maintenance release
8.0August 24, 2015OS X El Capitan support for both host and guest OS; Windows 10 support for guest OS. New support for Ubuntu 15.04, Fedora 22, CentOS 7.1, RHEL 7.1, Oracle Linux 7.1, VMware Project Photon. Graphics support updated for DirectX10 and OpenGL 3.3. Improvements for encrypted virtual machines. Improved resolution settings. VMware vCloud Air Integration. Improved remote experience. Support IPv6 NAT network. Support the retina Macs, including iMac 5k and 12" MacBook. Echo cancellation for voice and video calls with Microsoft Lync and Skype. USB 3 support for Windows 7 VM's. Improved Start menu. Improved new VM creator.
8.0.1October 1, 2015Maintenance Release. Fixes an issue involving installing El Capitan as a guest OS.
8.0.2October 29, 2015Maintenance Release. Fixes issues with virtual machines crashing, and other compatibility fixes.
8.1December 8, 2015Maintenance Release. Fixes issues with Windows 10 easy installation and other compatibility improvements.
8.1.1April 21, 2016Maintenance Release. Fixes issues with nat and port forwarding and other compatibility improvements.
8.5September 8, 2016Maintenance Release. Full support for macOS Sierra, including Tabs and Siri support and Windows 10 Anniversary edition.
8.5.1October 27, 2016Maintenance Release. Fixes a hang/crash issue on Linux kernel 4.7, Intel-based hosts, as well as other issues.
8.5.2November 13, 2016Maintenance Release. Addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This may allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Fusion. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project has assigned the identifier CVE-2016-7461 to this issue.
8.5.3November 29, 2016Maintenance Release. Addresses an issue that could cause Fusion on mac OS 10.12 to encounter an error.
8.5.4March 9, 2017Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements.
8.5.5March 14, 2017Maintenance Release. Addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This vulnerability might allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Fusion. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project assigned the identifier CVE-2017-4901 to this issue.
8.5.6March 28, 2017Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
8.5.7May 18, 2017Maintenance Release. Day 0 support of the Windows 10 Creators Update as a guest operating system and contains bug fixes and security updates.
8.5.8June 22, 2017Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
8.5.9November 16, 2017Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
8.5.10January 9, 2018Maintenance Release. This update of VMware Fusion exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715.
10.0September 26, 2017In addition to supporting macOS 10.13 High Sierra as both Host and Guest, Fusion 10 supports Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and the latest updates for Server 2016.
10.1.0December 21, 2017Improved guest support of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
Includes VMware Tools 10.2.0
10.1.1January 9, 2018Maintenance Release. This update of VMware Fusion exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715.
10.1.2May 21, 2018Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
10.1.3August 14, 2018Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
10.1.4November 9, 2018Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
10.1.5November 22, 2018Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
11.0September 25, 2018In addition to supporting macOS Mojave as both Host and Guest, Fusion 11 supports Windows 10 October 2018 Update and the latest updates for Server 2016. Other notable features include: Enhanced Metal Graphics Rendering Engine with Direct3D 10.1, updated user interface and application menu, improved Fusion REST API, one-click SSH, new vSphere view, VMware Virtual Hardware Platform version 16.
11.0.1November 9, 2018Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes for a compatibility issue with other hypervisor software.
11.0.2November 22, 2018Maintenance Release. Improves support for Windows 10 October 2018 Update
11.0.3March 28, 2019Maintenance Release. It contains bug fixes and security updates.
11.1.0May 14, 2019Maintenance Release. Contains bug fixes and security updates, added support for Windows 10 19H1 Ubuntu 19.04 RHEL 8.0 Fedora 30 ESXi 6.7 U2.
11.1.1Aug 8, 2019Maintenance Release. Mitigates a virtual machine performance issue.
11.5Sep 16, 2019Support for Dark Mode, Sidecar, and more.
11.5.1Nov 12, 2019Several security fixes.