Installing MacOS SnowLeopard on Windows 7 using VMware Workstation 7.0

Added by: Boaz Minitzer


A coworker came to me with a problem, of his Cisco AnyConnect VPN installation for Mac not working.  Since I don't have a mac handy, I decided to install a copy on VMware workstation.

However I did run into a few problems, so I decided to put it on the blog for future experimentalists.

Required Components:

1. Mac DVD or ISO or DMG of Mac OS, in this case SnowLeopart 10.6.3
2. If you have the DMG file as I had, you will need dmg2img which can be downloaded from here (if that doesnt work, go here http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/dmg2img.shtml maybe the link changed)
3. Convert the DMG file to ISO file, pretty easy, just put all dmg2iso files in one folder plus your DMG file, and go to command prompt and write "dmg2iso <name of dmg file> <name of iso file> it will do a few fancy outputs as below and then you have the .iso file which vmware can mount:

 

      4.  You need the predefined MAC VMware VMX files and so on: can get from here
      5.  Since we are doing this on Windows 7, you have to get this bootloader, I assume also if you're not on Win7 but have an AMD CPU.  AMD and Windows 7 64 Bit Host users download darwin_legacy boot loader from here.

     That's it, now that you have all the pre-requirements, let's go on to configurations:


Step 1:  Install VMware Workstation, in my case I have version 7.0:

Now, we we will go to file, open:

And choose the file inside at <wherever you unzipped>\Snowy_Vmware_files\Snowy_VM\Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm

PS: this file comes as a bz2, you can unzip it using winzip or any other software such as 7zip and others, it would be easier on any Unix, but you are on Windows 7...

Then you will get a screen with a summary before starting the VM:

You can add memory, or other options if you'd like, but mainly make sure to go into the CD/DVD options and choose the OTHER file you downloaded, the Legacy bootloader as a DVD:

Go into "Edit Virtual Machine Settings"

As in screenshot below, browse for the "darwin_snow_legacy.iso" that you downloaded earlier, and point to that:

Then Press "Ok" and start the VM.

The next step, is to substitute the actual ISO file of SnowLeopard after the boot loader has finished loading, right click on the DVD Icon as in the below screenshot, and browse to the .ISO file of SnowLeopard:

Then click on Ok, make sure you have "connected" checked:

You will get a warning screen that shows:

Click OK without fear!

Then click on Darth Vader and then on the DVD that say's OS X Installation DVD:

there may also be (as you can see in picture above) a VMware "CD" in there.  Afterwards
You will then get a screen like this:

Note: Sometimes you will not see a hard Drive on which to install the OS.  I had to go into Disk Utility and create a partition on the virtual disk for the installation program to give the disk as an option.  

You may see this:

Then choose Disk utility from the menu above:

And then partition the drive:

then exit Disk Partition, and you should see this:

Click on the yellow disk, and at this point it will start moving forward, and now install SnowLeopard on your VMware workstation!

After the setup screens, license, disk (which is the 40Gb virtual disk) etc, the installation will continue:

When the install ends, it's not going to be able to reboot, you WILL get a screen like this:

Disregard, and reboot.  What you need to do, is reboot from the boot loader again, and you will then get this screen:

I called the disk "VirtDisk1" ( I changed the name I gave it earlier "Untitiled 1") which is what you see on the right, when you click on that, the OS will load, and you will get your Mac Desktop as below.

And you're good to go.  Just don't update the system to 10.6.4/5/6/7/8 etc, as it could mess it up.