I don't think you have to activate Windows. Whenever that watermark has come up for me, I think I've just clicked on (paraphrasing) "remind me later", and I haven't seen it in a couple of weeks.
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Your initial statement is technically true. That said: your own experience described herein typically means that your installation of Windows was simply able to successfully auto-activate at some point, possibly even at the very moment that you gave it access to the internet. In the event that such activation fails, (such as what apparently happened to jacobp) the watermark is a visual indication that the OS has enacted a minor feature lock-out, preventing the user from customizing a small selection of Windows features such as changing the desktop background and customizing the behavior of the Taskbar. It's really just an annoyance more than anything else.
To my knowledge, the most common source of failed activations is OEM licenses, which can be obtained extremely cheaply from various internet resellers -- though, I'm pretty sure that such sales are against Microsoft's original intentions for those keys. Those OEM licenses are hardware locked; if the software thinks that enough hardware changes have taken place to conclude that the Windows installation has been moved from one "computer" to another "computer" then it will fail activation. Virtual machines/emulators are special cases where the word "computer" can't be taken to be a literal reference to the actual hardware; thus, any major changes to the emulation software are far more likely to create the kind of issues that Jacob has described.
Mind you, I can't speak authoritatively to the specifics of Jacob's version issues, but I can offer a wild speculation: Supposedly, Microsoft was going to stop supporting Windows 7/8/10 upgrade keys at some point; it's possible that Jacob was simply using an older key, and Microsoft's changes have finally taken effect. Compound that with the OEM license "hardware change" detection feature, and we may have discovered the trigger for the specific timing of his issue. In which case, the obvious solution is (unfortunately) to buy a new key.
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Windows11 Pro unable to connect to internet | Fusion
I'm running VMWare version 13.5.0. I've installed Windows 11 64-bit Arm version of Windows11 on my M2 MacBook Pro. But I am unable to connect to the internet i
community.broadcom.com
Thank you.
I selected to install vmware tools from menu, but nothing appears.
So I would like to know if there is a link to manually download them and run them, offline, as online downloading from vmware is not currently available.
I just checked post #147 as you mentioned.
Is mounted cd = mounted dmg?
I cannot locate anything.
This is it
When you went to "Install VMware Tools", you said nothing appeared. Did you mean that nothing showed on the screen, or that nothing appeared in the CD drive? (I'm guessing you meant the first one.)
All "Install VMware Tools" does is mount a CD appropriate for the guest OS (nothing will appear on the screen). You need to go the CD drive inside the VM and run the installer from there.
This is perhaps being a bit pedantic, but I'm pretty sure that's technically not all that it does: I believe the mounted disk image within the VM would happily take advantage of autorun to launch the installer for you, if autorun is enabled within the OS.
Not that it should be, mind you... anyone who still has autorun enabled on any operating system should promptly disable it, to limit vulnerability to malware -- which will also happily take advantage of it, given the opportunity.
True, it would pop up if Autorun is enabled. I didn't mention it since it's good practice to leave it disabled, which it has been by default since Windows Vista.
Yes, I meant that nothing appeared on the screen.
I selected 'Install VMware Tools' from the menu of vmware itself, not inside windows/arm. There is such an option there but nothing appears on the screen and it seems that nothing happens.
I need to solve this problem in order to give internet access to windows.
Have a look in Windows Explorer. Is there a virtual Drive named "VMware Tools" (or similar)?
Finally, I run again from vmware menu the 'install', and all at a sudden inside windows the installation windows appeared. The installation finished, not internet is ok!
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Next problem?
How can I see mac drives inside windows in vwmare?
Is it about 'network sharing' inside windows, or other setting somewhere?
There is a setting in VMware: Choose the VM, right click "Settings". Choose the Options tab, you'll find an entry "Shared Folders".
Shared folders are not supported in Fusion on Apple Silicon with Windows guests, which is why you aren’t seeing that setting.
You could enable file sharing on the host OS and connect to it that way, or you can drag and drop files and folders into the virtual machine but otherwise, no you can’t see folders on the host.
You can see macOS folders inside VMware. Inside Windows right click This PC and select Map network drive. You can select a folder, your Home folder or even your entire Mac HD. On the Mac side you have to enable folder sharing for whatever you want to map. It will now be available in File Explorer.
I tried to 'map network drive' but it displayed a message for 'network sharing'.
But even after enabling several options, still, no network = mac folders, are visible.
Check the current settings:
Attachments
This works for me:
- MacbookPro M1 / Sonoma 14.5
- Windows 11 64-bit ARM
- Go to System Settings > General
- Turn File Sharing toggle On
- Click the (i) icon next to the same toggle
- Add the folder you want to share using the + under Shared Folders on left.
- Make sure your macos user has read/write access to said folder in the right column
- Click the (options) button above right column
- Enter a password that you'll need to enter in Windows when connecting to this network folder
- Hit ok
- Now note the ip address on top of this panel (e.g. - smb://10.0.1.25) you will need it to manually connect to your mac from windows.
- Open up your Windows VM
- Go to File Explorer
- Right click This PC and select Map network drive.
- Pick your favorite letter from the drive letter options
- Enter \\10.0.1.25\your-shared-folder-name
- Check box next to reconnect at login
- Hit next
- If all goes well it will ask you for the password you made in the Mac steps above
- Enter your user of the mac (the one from Users/your-mac-name)
- Enter that password you created from the Mac steps above
- Hit Done
- The shared folder should appear as a network drive in File Explorer
Also, in File Sharing on Mac, hit options at the bottom and turn on Share files and folders using SMB