How To VMware Windows

How to Upgrade to macOS Big Sur on Vmware On Windows

macOS Big Sur Beta
macOS Big Sur Beta Version

Just a few days before, the tech giant Apple announced a ton of exciting software updates. WWDC is Apple’s biggest conference which is held every year. In WWDC, Apple announces all the tech news and updates they have for users like this year they announced the IOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and as well as macOS 11 Big Sur which is the topic for us today.

Now that a new operating system has been released, everyone is excited to try it out for themselves. As good as it looks for a lot of people, there is also a concern about what it might be like or if they don’t like it. And since it’s still in Beta, there are still things to improve so far. There fore, the best option to install macOS Big Sur is to install it on a virtualization software to try it out.

Install macOS Big Sur Beta on VMware on Windows

Without wasting your time lets head right towards installing the new macOS Big Sur on Vmware on Windows. As of now, the macOS Big Sur 11.0 is missing some files so you won’t be able to create a bootable ISO file. this tutorial is great for those who have a pre-installed macOS Catalina on their systems and can then simply upgrade to the new macOS Big Sur.

1. Install macOS Catalina On Vmware

Currently, there is an error that prevents us from installing macOS Big Sur directly which we would let you know as soon as we could find the solution to it. But until then, You will need an alternative way to install macOS Big Sur.

The first thing to do is to install macOS Catalina on Vmware which we will then upgrade to Big Sur later in the tutorial. Click here to read the full article on How to Install macOS Catalina On Vmware first if you don’t know how to do so.

2. Download & install macOS Big Sur Beta

Now that you have successfully downloaded the macOS Catalina on VMware, You can go ahead and download macOS Big Sur beta version so that we can upgrade our pre-installed macOS Catalina.

In order to download macOS Big Sur Beta, you will need to have a developer’s account or be part of the Apple Seed program which enables the macOS beta versions to download for you.

#1. Now go to the download page from Apple and Download the macOS Customer Beta Access Utility tool which is required for downloading macOS Big Sur.

#2. Once downloaded, Run the Utility tool and agree to the terms and install it. The installation is easy and you won’t face any problems along the way.

Install macOS Public Beta Utility Tool
Install macOS Public Beta Utility Tool

#3. When the installation is complete, the System Preferences with open automatically and if it didn’t, go ahead and open it yourself and then click on Software Updates.

#4. Now You should be able to see the new update show up if it didn’t, relaunch it and it will show up in a few seconds. Once it shows up, click on Upgrade now and the download process will begin. The new beta is quite big in size with about 9.5 GB. If you don’t have a good internet speed then you will need to wait for a few hours to download the file.

Download and upgrade macOS
Download and Upgrade macOS

#5. Now that the file is downloaded successfully, a window will pop up that will show up the new macOS upgrade. Click Continue to proceed with the installation.

#6. To continue you will need to Agree to the license agreement terms and conditions of the software.

macOS license term agreement
macOS license term agreement

#7. Now to install the macOS Big Sur beta Version, go ahead and select the disk where you want it to be installed and the installation will begin right after.

The installation process will begin once you have selected the disk. it might take some time and your system will restart several times during the process which is normal. Just wait for it to complete and make sure not to shut down your system during the process.

If you faced an error stating “the operation couldn’t be completed (BIErrorDomain error 3.)” then scroll down to the bottom of the article where we have provided the solution to solve it.

macOS Big Sur beta installed
macOS Big Sur Successfully installed

Congrats! The macOS Big Sur installation is now complete and you can enjoy using the new macOS.

How to resolve : the operation couldn’t be completed (BIErrorDomain error 3.)

When selecting a disk to install macOS Big Sur, you might face this error saying the operation could not be completed and the install button is not even clickable.

A lot of people are facing this problem and most of these people are the ones that have been installing macOS Big Sur through virtualization (VMware workstation/Fusion or Parallels Desktop). Basically Apple happens to have a check on to see if you’re using a real mac instead of installing it in a virtualization environment so when it detects that the system is not a physical mac this error pops up. Follow the instructions below the fix the error.

#1. To fix this error, the first thing to do is to open the terminal inside your macOS Catalina to find the board ID. Once launched copy and paste this command.

ioreg -l | grep board-id

#2. once done, copy the results you got and paste this next command and paste it into terminal.

sysctl hw.model

#3. Once you get the results, copy them too as you will need them in a moment.

#4. Next thing to is to completely shutdown your Virtual machine and go to the VMX file location.

#5. Open the VMX File via notepad and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Now paste the following commands.

smbios.reflectHost = "TRUE"
hw.model = "Your computer model, number"
board-id = "enter the board number"

#6. Now change the model and board id in the quotation marks to match the ones with your copied results.

In case If you got confused on what to do, Here’s an example you can use to check how your results should look like.

smbios.reflectHost = "TRUE"
hw.model = "MacBookPro15,1"
board-id = "Mac-224D89E6547G9512"
smc.version = “0”

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