OpenCore for VMware (OC4VM) has been built to run macOS VMs primarily on Intel based Apple Macs. It may also be used on other PC hardware using VMware Workstation. It provides an OpenCore disk image that can be used to boot Intel based macOS using VMware Fusion and Workstation.

Using OpenCore allows for a flexible patching system to overcome limitations of the virtualisation software. It basically creates a virtual Hackintosh, which is similar in implementation to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher used to run unsupported macOS versions on older Apple Mac computers.

It is also a replacement for the Unlocker and does not require patching VMware, but that is not the primary purpose of OC4VM which was originally created to fix issues on VMware Fusion when running macOS guests.

What OC4VM can do?

• Run macOS on Intel CPUs
• Run macOS on AMD CPUs
• Boot to macOS Recovery mode which is broken in VMware's EFI implementation
• Add Intel e1000e virtual NIC compatibility for Ventura and later versions of macOS

What OC4VM cannot do:

• Boot Intel macOS on an Apple Silicon CPU
• Use the Apple para-virtualised GPU on non-Apple hardware
• Use the Apple para-virtualised GPU on older Macs using OCLP and macOS Sonoma or later

The OC4VM system has been tested on an Intel Mac mini mid-2014 and an AMD Ryzen based HP T740 with these guest OSes:

• Big Sur
• Monterey
• Ventura
• Sonoma
• Sequoia
• Tahoe

using:

• VMware Fusion Pro 25H2
• VMware Workstation Pro 25H2 (Windows and Linux)

CPUs will need to support the following instructions:

• AVX
• AVX2
• F16C
• RDRAND

• Download a binary release from https://github.com/DrDonk/oc4vm/releases
• Optionally check the sha512 checksum matches with the one published with the release
• Unzip the archive to extract the files
• Navigate to the folder with the extracted files

OC4VM has 6 sub-folders:

The most import folder is the 'vmware' folders.

The 'vmware' folder contains 2 folders with a VM template for VMware macOS virtual machines. The folders are for AMD and Intel CPUs. You will need to use the one that matches the host CPU.

Each folder contains these files:

To create a new virtual machine copy either the Intel or AMD template to a new folder. Open the VM in the new folder in VMware. Change any memory settings you may need.

You will need to add some installation media to the new VM to install macOS, and set the ISO or virtual disk to point to the installation media.

Power on and install macOS as normal.

Please follow these instructions to add to an existing macOS guest.

1. Make sure the VM is shutdown.
2. Copy the opencore.iso from the template folder to the existing VMs folder.
3. Use the guest settings to add the opencore.iso file as a CD drive.
4. Boot to the firmware and select the OpenCore drive as the boot device.

To upgrade the exisitng OC4VM enabled VM you will need to do these steps:

1. Make sure the VM is shutdown.
2. Copy the new opencore.iso from the template folder to VM folder.
3. (Optionally) There may be changes to the template VMX file you may want to add to the VM. You will have to check the differences and copy any changed lines you want to the existing VMX file.

OC4VM provides a copy of the VMware macOS guest tools ISO images on the OC4VM boot disk. To install mount the file from /Volumes/OPENCORE/OC4VM/iso/darwin.iso inside the guest and install the tools.

There are some tools written specially for use in the macOS guest. They are documented in the tools help.

VMware on Linux and Windows cannot edit the guestOS setting to another version of mac OS X/macOS. To get around this limitation the VMware template folder has a small Windows program, macguest.exe, that can be used to open the guest's VMX file and change the setting. Linux progrm is currently under development.

If you want to make the VM look like a specific Mac model the settings can be configued in the VMware VMX file. Details are in the spoofing help.

Building must be done on macOS, either real or virtualized. Details are in the building help.

There are also some notes I collated when building OCVM which may be useful to others who want to better understand the system or modify it.

If you are trying a specific combination, hypervisor/CPU/OS, please start a discussion instead of an issue. It is impossible for us to test all combinations out there and so discussions are a better place to help one another. If an actual bug or enhancement is identified whilst discussing a specific scenario an issue can then be created to track it. Better still a pull request with a fix would be useful.

Any obvious bugs should be logged as an issue. Please give all relevant information to help diagnose the issue.

Most importantly let us be supportive of each other with respectful discussions.

Many thanks to the great developers and community around the OpenCore scene. The OC4VM package uses the following:

• OpenCore - https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg
• Lilu - https://github.com/acidanthera/Lilu
• DebugEnhancer - https://github.com/acidanthera/DebugEnhancer
• VirtualSMC - https://github.com/acidanthera/VirtualSMC
• AMD_Vanilla - https://github.com/AMD-OSX/AMD_Vanilla
• minijinja - https://github.com/mitsuhiko/minijinja
• stoml - https://github.com/freshautomations/stoml

Also thanks to the testers who helped me out with the project.

(c) 2023-5 David Parsons