How to install Yosemite Beta 1 (OSX 10.10) on a Virtual Machine using VMware Fusion (with step-by-step video tutorial)

As you probably know, Apple has recently released the Beta 1 of Yosemite, the coming OS X version (10.10) .

I was waiting for it and I'm excited and eager to test it for you.

In this post I'm going to show how to install Yosemite Beta 1 on a virtual machine but, before getting started, you want to make sure you have all you need.

Prep stage

1. Verify your Mac supports it: You'll need Mavericks (i.e.  OS X 10.9) physically installed on your hard drive and at least 2GB of memory and 8GB of available disk space.
2. Backup all your data: An OS upgrade is an extraordinary maintenance operation and requires special caution, particularly when installing a Beta version. Numerous bugs can be still present at this development stage and it's very likely that something can go wrong, so you want to be able to recover your data in case of disaster.
3. Create a Mavericks virtual machine: Don't install Yosemite Beta on a physical OS, because it's still unreliable. Create a OS X virtual machine with Bootcamp, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox or Vmware Fusion in order to test it.

Setup stage

1. Create a OS X virtual machine: You need to have OS X Mavericks (OS X 10.9) as host system, physically installed on your hard drive. I've tested Parallels Desktop first, and I've successfully created a new VM by using a copy of the Mavericks installer from my backup disk. You can also use Mavericks Recovery Partition but it's a way slower method (it implies downloading the whole OS from Apple server and, in my case, it aborted after a while). 
2. Download Yosemite Beta: If you signed up for Apple Beta Program, you should receive an email from Apple containing the link to the download page, but you can anyway download the Beta from here: Get OS X Yosemite Beta You'll need your Apple ID and a redemption code automatically generated for you by Apple in order to download the file.
3. Upgrade your OS X VM to Yosemite: Double-click Install Yosemite Beta from inside your VM and start the installation (see the video tutorial for more details). Here, sadly, Parallels Desktop has failed the test because, after successfully upgrading, Yosemite won't boot up. All I had was a Darwin boot loader with its icon but nothing happened when I clicked it. According to Parallels official webpage, it's because their product doesn't support Yosemite yet. Afterwards I've read online that VMware Fusion could successfully run Yosemite and I've decided to test it. Heads up: unlike what stated in MacRumors forum, creating a new VM by using Yosemite Beta Installer right away won't work. In my case, Yosemite VM won't boot up and showed an "operating system not found" error message. You need to create an OS X Mavericks Virtual Machine first and install the upgrade afterwards. Creating a Mavericks VM with VMware Fusion is pretty quick and straightforward and you'll only need a copy of Mavericks installer. After a while, I've successfully upgraded my VM to Yosemite and waited for my Mac to complete the reboot with a little anxiety, but it worked, yay!

Wrap-up

Apple has released Yosemite Beta 1 on Thursday July 24th, advising that it's still unreliable and in development. 

In a coming post I'm going to review Yosemite Beta 1 and describe my first impressions about it, but I can disclose right now that I'm suspending my judgment because there's still too much work to get done.

Though I like some new features, I'm a little puzzled by the look of the new OS and I'm not sure I like it.

In this post I've successfully tested VMware Fusion, based on the positive feedback about it coming from trustworthy online sources.

I'm not particularly impressed by its performance, though, and I reserve to review this post after testing VirtualBox, as well.

What's your user experience about Yosemite Beta 1?

Feel free to share your impressions, I would really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks for your attention and see you soon with Yosemite Beta Review!


8/19/2014 Update: I've installed the latest Parallel Desktop version (9.0.24237) but it still fails to boot Yosemite Beta 1. It only displays a Darwin boot loader but, when I click Macintosh HD icon, nothing happens.

I will test VirtualBox on this installation.


8/20/2014 Update: I've tested VirtualBox, but I couldn't find a way to create an OS X virtual machine with it. Somebody reports to have successfully done it by using pirated OS X versions (to create a so-called "Hackintosh") but I won't do this for two reasons:

1. It's illegal (this blog doesn't support piracy in any way).
2. It wouldn't make sense, as I own an iMac running a genuine OS X operating system.

I've tried to create a VM using my Snow Leopard Install DVD but the install fails because it displays an error "no bootable devices found".  I've tried to create an ISO image both with Disk Utility and with Burn but the process returns errors and aborts every time.

8/22/2014 Update: I could find a workaround here (thanks to Robert Setiadi for it) and I could successfully create an OS X Mavericks virtual machine on VirtualBox. I'm currently updating the VM to Yosemite and then I'll download the latest Beta version, so check back this post and my coming one, where I'll describe in more detail how I did it.  

8/25/2014 Update: You can check my new post on how to create a Yosemite VM with VirtualBox here: http://savvygeektips.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-install-yosemite-beta-1-with.html

8/28/2014 Update: Parallels Desktop 10 has just been released and, according to the official website, it should support Mac OS X Yosemite Beta as a Virtual Machine.  

11/7/2014 Update: Parallels Desktop 10 now fully supports Yosemite as a Virtual Machine.