New M4-based Macs are reportedly unable to run digital machines of older macOS variations previous to macOS Ventura 13.4, in line with consumer reviews and developer findings.
In accordance with an in-depth write-up by the Eclectic Gentle Firm’s Howard Oakley, safety researcher Csaba Fitzl highlighted the difficulty, which has been documented in Apple Suggestions and impacts well-liked virtualization software program together with UTM. When trying to run a digital machine with an earlier model of macOS on M4 Macs, customers encounter a black display screen, and the VM fails besides fully.
The limitation seems to happen throughout early kernel boot processes, as indicated by Exercise Monitor displaying just one lively digital core regardless of a number of cores being allotted. This implies the failure occurs earlier than the VM kernel can initialize further cores.
The limitation shouldn’t be a difficulty on M1, M2, and M3 Macs, all of which may efficiently run VMs of macOS Monterey (12.0.1) and later variations (with some limitations), although Large Sur virtualization was by no means supported on Apple silicon Macs.
For customers who depend on older macOS variations in digital machines for testing or compatibility functions, this limitation could also be an essential consideration earlier than upgrading to M4-based Macs. At the moment supported macOS variations for virtualization on M4 Macs embrace:
macOS Ventura 13.4 and later
macOS Sonoma 14
macOS Sequoia 15
Given the character of the difficulty occurring early within the boot course of, Oakley reviews {that a} repair would possible require Apple to launch up to date IPSW recordsdata for older macOS variations, which might be unprecedented for the corporate, maybe making it unlikely.
The restriction provides to present virtualization limitations on Apple silicon Macs, similar to the shortcoming to run App Retailer purposes in VMs. Apple did nonetheless introduce a notable enhancement to its virtualization framework in macOS Sequoia by enabling Mac customers to signal into iCloud inside macOS VMs.
Apple in October unveiled new M4 powered variations of its iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Professional fashions. For extra data on the virtualization difficulty, be sure you learn Oakley’s informative write-up.
