Installing mac os x retail on vmware. Installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a VMware virtual machine on Windows

Apple is positioning its operating system For Mac computers like perfection. In reality this is far from the case. There are many programs that only work on Windows. This is due to the greater prevalence of this OS.

Many programmers don’t get around to adapting their software to the Apple platform. A lot of popular software used in business, engineering, music and other fields is not available on OS X. What should I do? In such a situation, a virtual machine for Mac OS will help.

Today we will talk about how to install Windows 7 on an Apple computer. I will tell you what is needed for this and describe all the stages of installation. By the way, important point is to select a program to visualize another operating system. Let's try to find something good for ourselves.

You may need an installation disk or flash drive if your computer has optical drive. I recommend reading the article “” so that there are no difficulties at this stage.

Which virtual machine should I choose?

There are several common options. Despite the differences, one thing is constant in each program - the main function (OS visualization). First, check out the pros and cons of virtual machines:

• No need to reboot;
• "Two in one." Some utilities allow you to open Windows windows on the OS X Yosemite desktop;
• Zero chance of catching the virus. In such a situation, Windows is limited to one program; the malware will not go beyond it and will not harm other files and documents.
• Usage virtual machine with a small amount of available resources (for example, weak computer) will cause both the guest (Windows) and host systems (Yosemite) to freeze;
• You cannot run resource-intensive programs. For example, modern video editors (Sony Vegas Pro) or latest generation games;
• Multifunctional virtual machines that provide stable operation cost $50-160.

As promised, I offer a small list of the best software that visualizes Windows 7 and other operating systems:

• VMware Fusion - paid product ($80-160);
• VirtualBox - free program;
• Parallels Desktop - paid utility (3,990 rubles);
• Installation Windows disk(you can use an image).

Just recently I told. Using the tools of this utility, you can create a virtual image of Windows.

Look at each program and choose a specific option for yourself. I will work with the second utility from this list. Using her example, in the next section I will tell you how to install Windows on a Mac.

Installation

Parallels Desktop is designed in the “Apple-way” style. This means that even the most experienced user can understand the interface. First you need to install the utility itself. Double-click on the downloaded file with the left mouse button.

A window with one button will open - Install. Select trial version or register license key, which can be purchased on the developer’s official website.

In a visualized platform, you can use traditional methods to protect your data. One of them is . I talked about how to do this in one of my articles.

After installation is complete, the workspace will open. Here, in a few clicks, you can select the OS you need.

The user can install a “clean” system or transfer an already working one from his computer. Several free options are available at once. Windows 8 has one feature - a pre-release version is presented, but it will still work. By the way, not a single competitor has G8 support.

We are interested in installing Windows 7. I chose the first option, which is highlighted with a blue frame in the previous screen. Since my computer does not have a disk drive, I will use a virtual image. To do this, I’ll simply indicate the path to it in the program settings.

Now you need to select the degree of embedding. Two options are offered. Like a Mac is the maximum adaptation of Windows programs for OS X Yosemite, allowing you to interact with files and documents in two operating systems at once (shared file storage is used). Like a PC - creating a virtual environment for Windows with separate space for data storage.

I chose the second option. It is enough for stable work with basic Windows tools 7. After this, the virtual machine starts. The operating system installer opens in a separate window.

Probably everyone knows what he looks like. Necessary reboots that occur during the installation process are carried out in the same window, without affecting the operation of the main system.

It took me about 10 minutes to connect the second OS to my Mac. To be honest, I'm pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think that the installation would take so little time, because I used an image, and not a disk or flash drive (previously I only worked with them).

If you are having difficulty, you can ask a friend for help. For a quick solution to all problems, I recommend.

You have received a ready-made Windows, but before you start using it, I advise you to look at and configure the configurations. They are located in Parallels Tools. There is nothing complicated here. Thanks intuitively clear interface no special skills required.

The speed of operation is determined by the parameters found in the General tab. We are interested in volume RAM and the number of cores that will be allocated to the guest system. The same configurations are located in the Hardware section.

After all the settings, you can work with the second OS on your Apple computer. This has long been a common practice. This method will be used until programmers start making their products cross-platform (some have already taken this path).

By the way, a few years ago, the Apple company sharply denied the possibility of crossing its operating system with others, until the software appeared Boot Camp(standard for OS X Yosemite utility). It is used to divide a hard drive into several partitions, that is, one of them can be allocated specifically for Windows.

From this we can conclude that Apple met users halfway by allowing the installation of third-party systems.

By the way, buy latest version Parallels Desktop is available not from the official developer, but from retailer Allsoft for 3,391 rubles .

All we have to do is reap the benefits of the developers and use maximum opportunities to achieve our goals. This article is coming to an end. You can download a virtual machine and try to do everything described above right now. But first, subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss the next articles.

Andrey Zenkov was with you, see you again.

This is why you need 32Gb of memory in your car (clickable)

And jokes aside, suddenly luck happened with Mac OS X in VMWare and they are no longer needed, everything works (that is, I’m slow, this same unlocker has existed for a long time and I knew about it for a long time, but now I just tested it).

Namely:

1. Let's take VMWare Workstation (I have the 8th version, the 9th somehow didn't work out well, although it was with MacOS installed in the old strange way, we need to try again).
2. We patch it with VMWare unlocker, Mac OS X appears in the OS list (and in Program Files(x86)\VMWare\VMWare Workstation - darwin.iso appears with VMWare tools).
3. We take and just install Mac OS X:
   • Create a new VM
   • As a CD with the OS, we specify an ISO image with the version of Mac OS X we need (we take the dmg from the root tracker and convert it to ISO)
   • We agree to all defaults, create the disk as SCSI (I installed more memory and gave more processor cores, that’s all the changes).
   • We load the virtual machine and the installer comes out.
   • In the installer, go to Disk Utility, create one partition on the disk (everything else is defaults: GUID partition and all that)
   • The disk becomes visible to the installer - just install everything
4. Mount the above-mentioned darwin.iso and install VMWare Tools from it
5. Download and install

Of the five versions shown in the screenshot, I installed four in the evening in the background, without thinking about anything at all.

There are moments:

1. I converted the disc from Snow Leopard (10.6) fine, but didn’t want to convert 10.8. Therefore, I converted all disk images (except 10.6) to running car from 10.6 according to this recipe (first Disk Utility to .cdr, then hdiutil convert to .iso.cdr)
2. For OS X Mavericks DP1 (10.9) ready boot images No. There are all sorts of recipes on how to make them, but I was lazy.

   Installing 10.8 and then upgrading did not work. Those. it first works: the installer starts, makes itself bootable, reboots, installs everything, reboots again - and peek-a-boo, VMWare swears that it does not support some feature of the processor (perhaps there will be no problem on Workstation 9).

   I didn’t bother and took a ready-made VMWare image (from this page, there is a link to a torrent with it below).

   The downloaded image turned out to be very good: it is frozen at the installation stage “after reboot”, i.e. you create users yourself, register with Apple and all that, there are no already created users.

3. VMSvga2 works great in 10.6-10.8 (I was afraid to install it in 10.9), but there are problems with 10.5:
   • The latest version in 10.5 does not work, you need to use the old one.
   • Not all resolutions (of the virtual screen) work, it’s very easy to get a black screen that doesn’t work - and it’s not clear how to get back to a working one (1920x1200 didn’t work for me)
   Therefore, either don’t install it at all (the driver from VMWare tools is normal), or carefully, with snapshots.

(although I think a regular Leopard will be fine too). Therefore, without delaying my promises, I will try to describe in sufficient detail the entire process from beginning to end.

Looking ahead, I want to say that the virtual system is not intended for a full-fledged “life” in, but you can get acquainted with the OS or, for example, develop applications for the iPhone without any problems.

What do we need?

Before we begin the installation itself, we need to get these “puzzle pieces”:

• PC computer with a processor that supports SSE3 instructions. I don’t know how it is on AMD, but everything installed perfectly.
• (Linux). To be honest, I have not tested the functionality of Linux, but in theory it should work too. Is there VMware for that too? 🙂
• Image made from the original Mac drive OS X, or regular Leopard: this can be a boxed version, a $9.99 update disk for Macs purchased after last June, or any other non-image. You can borrow such a disk from a friend who is a Mac driver or from the Internet (about 8 GB).
• Paid version of VMWare Workstation (preferably version seven) or free.
• Virtual machine image (approximately 13 MB). You can find it on the Internet search or on special file storages: , . I checked, both links are working.
• Some archiver for Windows that works with bzip2 archives, in which a virtual machine image is packed (for example, winrar or free 7-zip).

Once you have obtained all the necessary components, you can begin the installation process itself.

Installation

First of all, we need to install it on the computer software from VMware and unpack the downloaded archive Snowy_Vmware_files.tbz2 containing the following structure:

• Directory Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm - configured virtual machine.
• darwin_snow.iso - very useful boot disk+ VMWare Tools.
• EnsoniqAudioPCI.mpkg.tar.gz - archive with sound driver.
• Install Notes - a file with a description in English.

Now we must launch VMware Workstation (or Player) and through the File->Open menu (or through the icon in the main program window) add our created virtual machine from the Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm directory.

Next, go to the tab with the virtual machine that appears and find “Edit virtual machine settings” among the commands. Depending on your computer configuration, you can select the volume virtual memory, places for hard drive, number of processors and cores, type local network, sound card and so on*.

*At first, I allowed the use of 2 GB of RAM out of 3 GB available in the system, but during installation the computer froze and I had to “hard” reboot it, so do not overestimate the capabilities of the system, choose the parameters “wisely”.

Remember, in the unpacked archive we had the file darwin_snow.iso? This is what you need to use in the virtual CD/DVD drive. Be sure to check the “Connect at power on” checkbox so that the image is automatically connected when the system starts. That's it, we are completely ready to install the system, you can turn on the virtual computer.

When turned on, the system can go into one of three states:

• a suggestion to insert a DVD (I had this yesterday);
• reading error EBIOS read error: Error 0x31 Block 0 Sector 4 (today this error constantly pops up);
• menu from boot options (this also happened yesterday);

You should not pay attention to this, because now you need to replace darwin_snow.iso, located in the virtual drive, with the image. To do this, you can press Ctrl+D (or the VM->Settings menu) and select CD/DVD from the list, then specify the path to the MacOS image and be sure to check another “Connecter” checkbox (it will be unchecked). If there was a boot menu on the screen, then you should press the key with the Latin letter “c” on the keyboard, in other cases the virtual machine will think for a few seconds and proceed to boot installation disk without anyone's help.

Within a minute or a minute and a half, a language selection window will appear on the screen and you can begin installing the system. All that remains is to accept license agreement and select options for installation. For example, I don’t need printer drivers or additional localizations, so I removed unnecessary checkboxes from the list.

Launch and testing

Great, as I said, everything ended faster - exactly 16 minutes passed. We reboot the virtual machine (ignore Kernel Panic) and go through the system registration process. I won't dwell on this because everything is very easy there. If the system doesn’t start the first time, it’s okay, and I don’t have to do it every time, and some even reboot VMware 5-10 times until they achieve a positive result.

Upon completion of registration (when the desktop appears on the screen), replace the image back to darwin_snow.iso, because it contains VMware Tools, they also need to be installed, which will make it possible, for example, to change the screen resolution or exchange files between two operating systems.

All. Now we have a ready-made and almost completely “working” system. Why did I put the word “working” in quotation marks? Because the problem with freezes at the boot stage can await you even now: do not forget to mount the darwin_snow.iso image every time you turn on the virtual machine. Also, ACPI does not work quite correctly (I would even say that it works extremely poorly 🙂).

In general, in this simple way I installed Snow Leopard on VMware, without doing shamanic dances with a tambourine, hackintosh, etc.

I forgot to add one more thing. Naturally, it would be naive to believe that a guest system (and even on such a not super-powerful computer) will be an adequate replacement for a full-fledged Macintosh. However, any user will be able to “touch” OSX, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses and draw some conclusions for yourself.

Would you like to try Mac OS on your own home PC without any consequences? In this case, you will need to install a virtual VMware machine Workstation Pro, on which you can install Mac OS without damaging your computer.

Files required for downloading:

• Download or (Tablet and Russifier are present) to Russify the program
• for VMware
• - needed to install Mac OS

BIOS/UEFI setup

Enter BIOS/UEFI and enable hardware virtualization:

Intel (AMD) virtualization

VT-X or AMD-V

To understand how to enable hardware virtualization, enter the manufacturer and series of your motherboard in the search bar of your browser.

Let's start setting up VMware and installing Mac OS

First, download and install the VMware program on your PC; during installation, disable your antivirus if you are downloading the program from a torrent. Once you have downloaded and installed VMware, download and unzip the unlocker file.

Open the unlocker folder and be sure to run the “win-install.cmd” file with administrator rights. Unfortunately, without this file you will not be able to install a Mac OS virtual machine. To check whether the script worked correctly, two folders should appear in your unlocker folder (backup and tools).

The "tools" folder should contain the darwin.iso file, and the backup folder should contain backups of the patched files. These files should also be written on drive C: in the Program Files (x86) folder in the VMware Workstation folder. Unfortunately, we tested unlocker only on VMware versions up to 12.5, on new version Haven't tried 14.0. If you can't unlock your Mac installation, try VMware 12.0 or 12.5.

Let's start installing Mac OS - open VMware Workstation, click "File" - click "New virtual machine".

The wizard for creating a new virtual machine will pop up (set the custom option), click “Next”.

Select Install the operating system later and click “Next”.

Choose Apple Mac OS X and version, then "Next".

Assign an OS name or you can leave it as is and select the disk where it will be located, in in this case drive (D:).

We don't touch anything here.

We select the amount of computer resources we will give to the virtual machine. This depends on the parameters of your hardware.

We allocate the required amount of RAM for the virtual machine, we recommend at least 4 GB if the hardware allows it, otherwise your Mac system will be very slow. Don't forget to leave a small part of RAM for the main OS, at least 2 GB.

Let's leave it as is.

Select "Create new virtual disk".

Allocate the required space for the virtual disk and click “Save the virtual disk in one file.”

Click on hardware settings and go to the processor tab and enable “Virtual Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-v/RVI”.

Go to the folder with the Mac OS virtual machine that you created, open via text editor VMware virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file.

Go to the very bottom and insert the entry smc.version = "0" there and save.

Installing Mac OS on VMware

Launch the Mac OS virtual environment at the top by clicking the green button.

After starting Mac OS, select your language.

Select the virtual disk (VMware Virtual SATA Hard Drive Media) and click “Erase” and set the name.

Close the “Utility”, click continue, select the formatted disk and click “Continue”. The installation of Mac OS will begin in approximately 16 minutes.

Select a country.

Select "Russian PC" keyboard layout.

Leave the “Do not transfer information” checkbox and move on.

We mark not to log in to Apple ID.

Set the computer name and password.

Select your time zone. We remove the marks about sending data about failures. When the desktop pops up, click on VMware in the top menu "Virtual Machine" and install the VMware Tools package, it is needed to adjust the size of the desktop window Mac backgrounds OS for your screen resolution. That's all, if you have any questions, write in the comments, we will be happy to help.

It’s been over for a long time, but we hasten to assure you: this is far from the case. Yes, we have already discussed the main points that form the foundation of hackintosh science, but the number of nuances that deserve mentioning is in the dozens (if not hundreds). The reason for continuing the series was the persistent request of one of our readers - he was interested in learning about the intricacies installing Mac OS X not on a real computer, but in a virtual machine.

So, in the twelfth article of one of our oldest series of articles we will talk about running Mac OS X in a virtual machine. This option is acceptable for those who have no particular desire to immediately switch to Mac OS X, but who really need some exclusive Mac program. As a rule, this is Xcode: many people want to program for iOS, but not all of them are ready to buy a Mac or tinker with a Hackintosh just because of this.

Just a couple of years ago, installing Mac OS X in a virtual machine was just a little less hemorrhoids than installing Mac OS on a “live” PC. A lot has changed since the release of the version of the VirtualBox virtual machine that supports EFI emulation. This opens up a brilliant prospect for Windows users - the ability to easily roll Mac OS X from a retail disk into a virtual machine without any additional patches. However, even here there were some crutches and spokes in the wheels.

So, today we will talk about VirtualBox. As we have already said, the program natively supports the installation of Mac OS X under Windows. In addition, the price tag of VirtualBox is zero, which cannot be said about VMware. Mac installation OS X into a virtual machine can be done in two ways:

• installation from native disk and with EFI emulation(for those who have not read the previous articles in the series, we remind you that EFI is a replacement for BIOS on Macs). Please note that this method imposes significant processor limitations. For AMD, this path is definitely not allowed, and the same can be said for older Intel ones that do not support SSE3. Simply put, you must have Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Core i3/i5/i7. Core 2 Quad can also work, but the probability of success will be less
• installing a hackintosh build or retail disk via a third-party bootloader without enabling EFI emulation. This option will work for almost all modern processors.

Although we tried not to publish specific instructions in previous articles (because in the case of Hackintosh there is not and cannot be anything uniquely true and universal), today we will deviate from the accepted rule. The manual below is suitable for both methods at once, and we will explain the differences as we go.

You will need:

• Oracle VM VirtualBox distribution ()
• VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (download there)
• retail DVD Mac OS X. If you want to try the first method, then it must be a real disc, not an image. If you have Core i3/i5/i7, then only Mac OS X 10.6.3 or older is suitable for you, because Mac OS X 10.6 didn’t want to know about these processors yet
• virtual drives (for example, created in the DAEMON Tools program) - suitable for the second method
• a lot of free time

Let's get started! Install VirtualBox, launch it, click the button in the main window "Create". We see the virtual machine creation wizard:

All you have to do is call your machine “Mac”, and the OS type will be set automatically. Don't be surprised that Mac OS X Server is the choice - that's how it should be. To use a non-server Mac OS virtual VirtualBox machine not licensed. But server and non-server MacOS are not much different, so you can install both (if your conscience doesn’t bother you).

Then give the virtual machine memory. It’s better not to be greedy: for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, a gigabyte is a reasonable minimum, and two gigs is the desired optimum.

Then you will need to create a new disk image for the virtual machine, and the initial setup process will end:

The initial setup will finish, the secondary setup will begin :) Press the button "Properties":

Let's go through the key tabs of the settings dialog box. The most important thing is the tab "System":

Here we safely disable the floppy drive, make sure that the ICH9 chipset is selected and ticked "Enable IO APIC" and "Absolute Positioning Devices". The Enable EFI checkbox determines which of the two installation methods described above you choose. If you want to install from your native disk without unnecessary extras, then you need to check the box, but if the first method does not work or does not work, then uncheck it.

Then look at the tab "Display":

By default, a ridiculous 7 megabytes of video memory are allocated for MacOS. We strongly recommend setting the volume to nine times larger.

Then go to the tab "Carriers":

It all depends on the method you choose. If you chose the first method, then be sure to connect a real floppy drive to the IDE controller in ICH6 mode and check the box "Allow direct access". British scientists have proven that any other combination of settings, as well as using a disk image in a virtual drive instead of a live blank, does not give any results - Mac OS simply does not boot =)

The second installation method is not so picky - here you can safely use virtual drives or simply attach a disk image to the virtual machine. By the way, a small button with a disk is intended for clinging (in the screenshot it is to the right of the inscription “Secondary IDE master”).

Finally, all that remains is to look at the tab "USB". Both checkboxes must be checked here:

This completes the secondary setup. It's time to start the tertiary setup :) We hasten to reassure angry and tired readers - this is only necessary when using the first method. You need to close VirtualBox, go to the subfolder called ".\VirtualBox" in your home folder, and edit the contents of the file VirtualBox.xml. If you have absolutely nothing to edit it with, the WordPad built into Windows will do:

To array add the lines:

Save the file and launch VirtualBox again.

If you chose the first method, then put a disc with Mac OS X into the drive and start the virtual machine. If you chose the second method, then it is best to use the iBoot method. Download the iBoot image from the link and save it to disk. Then you mount it into a virtual drive or connect it directly to the machine. If you did everything correctly, then with the second method you will soon see a screen with a big-eyed apple (although the central point will have a different name):

Go to the menu “Devices-Optical Disc Drives-Select Optical Disk Image...” and select the retail image of Mac OS X. Then, inside the virtual machine, press F5 and press Enter.

You don’t have to bother at all and just slip the assembly image into VirtualBox. Then you won’t need to replace one image with another. But know that the iBoot method is cleaner and safer for modern computers, so it’s better to use it.

After several minutes of tedious waiting, you will see the treasured screen:

If you don't see it, try again. And again. Vary the settings mentioned above as long as you have time and patience ;)

After selecting a language, you will see the license agreement, and then you will be taken to the target disk selection screen, where it will be completely empty:

Don't despair - everything is going according to plan. On the menu "Utilities" select Disk Utility. You will see an unpartitioned disk on which you need to create one partition in GPT layout. To do this, just go to the tab "Partition the disk" and select from the list on the left "Section: 1". At the same time, enter the partition label:

After that, feel free to close Disk Utility. You will be taken back to the system installer.

If you are installing an assembly, then take the time to correctly check the boxes in the list of packages called up by the button "Customize" on the very last screen of the Mac OS X installer. There are no universal recommendations here - it all depends on the build and your processor. The main rule is to remove all unnecessary checkboxes (and there will be a lot of them).

If you install the system using the first method or use the iBoot method, then just wait until the installation is completed:

Then, if everything goes well, the machine will reboot itself. Sometimes it may show a gray screen of death (kernel panic), but this does not mean that the installation failed.

If you installed the system using the first method, it will boot on its own. If the latter, you will need an external bootloader. For iBoot, replace the image again with iBoot.iso, and on the screen with the big-eyed fruit you will see your virtual hard drive. When you boot into the system, install the MultiBeast utility (again, we refer you to the corresponding manual) and write the Chameleon bootloader to the virtual disk partition.