M4 Macs Unable to Run macOS VMs Earlier Than Ventura 13.4

New M4-based Macs are reportedly unable to run virtual machines of older macOS versions prior to macOS Ventura 13.4, according to user reports and developer findings.

M4 MacBook Pros Thumb
According to an in-depth write-up by the Eclectic Light Company's Howard Oakley, security researcher Csaba Fitzl highlighted the issue, which has been documented in Apple Feedback and affects popular virtualization software including UTM. When attempting to run a virtual machine with an earlier version of macOS on M4 Macs, users encounter a black screen, and the VM fails to boot entirely.

The limitation appears to occur during early kernel boot processes, as indicated by Activity Monitor showing only one active virtual core despite multiple cores being allocated. This suggests the failure happens before the VM kernel can initialize additional cores.

The limitation is not an issue on M1, M2, and M3 Macs, all of which can successfully run VMs of macOS Monterey (12.0.1) and later versions (with some limitations), though Big Sur virtualization was never supported on Apple silicon Macs.

For users who rely on older macOS versions in virtual machines for testing or compatibility purposes, this limitation may be an important consideration before upgrading to M4-based Macs. Currently supported macOS versions for virtualization on M4 Macs include:

  • macOS Ventura 13.4 and later
  • macOS Sonoma 14
  • macOS Sequoia 15

Given the nature of the issue occurring early in the boot process, Oakley reports that a fix would likely require Apple to release updated IPSW files for older macOS versions, which would be unprecedented for the company, perhaps making it unlikely.

The restriction adds to existing virtualization limitations on Apple silicon Macs, such as the inability to run App Store applications in VMs. Apple did however introduce a notable enhancement to its virtualization framework in macOS Sequoia by enabling Mac users to sign into iCloud within macOS VMs.

Apple in October unveiled new M4 powered versions of its iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models. For more information on the virtualization issue, be sure to read Oakley's informative write-up.

Tag: M4

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Latest iPhone 17 Series CAD Images in Line With Redesign Rumors

Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now. Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
iphone 16e usb c feature

Apple Provides Reason for iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe

Friday February 28, 2025 4:39 am PST by
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone. According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
apple intelligence black

These New Apple Intelligence Features Are Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April. Priority Notifications Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Rumored to Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update. Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far. Redesigned Camera App A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19. On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
cook trump

Trump Responds to Apple Keeping Diversity Policies

Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017 "APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote. Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
apple c1

How Fast is Apple's First-Ever 5G Modem? The Results Are Surprising

Friday February 28, 2025 10:08 am PST by
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected. While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...

Top Rated Comments

anshuvorty Avatar
15 weeks ago
Just add yet another wrinkle to the addage or user experience where macOS isn't really a legacy OS or an OS that supports legacy usage; it isn't like Windows where the UI might be modern and pretty but still allows for decades and decades of older software to run quite nicely; on macOS, you are lucky if you can run anything older than 2-3 years...this is yet another example of that.

So, I am not really surprised at this development; Apple wants its users and its developers to constantly be on the cutting edge in terms of hardware and software. If you want Unix/Linux legacy compability, macOS isn't where you will find it, you will be better off using an Open Source Unix/Linux OS instead...
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Trusteft Avatar
15 weeks ago
Seeing the fantastic Apple operating system (and computers) turn into a mobile phone OS, few years at a time. Meh.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Populus Avatar
15 weeks ago

Just add yet another wrinkle to the addage or user experience where macOS isn't really a legacy OS or an OS that supports legacy usage; it isn't like Windows where the UI might be modern and pretty but still allows for decades and decades of older software to run quite nicely; on macOS, you are lucky if you can run anything older than 2-3 years...this is yet another example of that.

So, I am not really surprised at this development; Apple wants its users and its developers to constantly be on the cutting edge in terms of hardware and software. If you want Unix/Linux legacy compability, macOS isn't where you will find it, you will be better off using an Open Source Unix/Linux OS instead...
Apple has a completely different policy regarding legacy software and code than Windows, I’d even say they’re opposites.

This has it’s negative side, but also (in my humble opinion), it also has some benefits.

We were all surprised by how quick and graceful was the adoption of the new ARM64 architecture by developers, while on Windows the transition to ARM is way slower.

Also the big quantities of old code on Windows, and I’m not talking 6-7 years old but even older, might make it less efficient. And there’s the problem of the inconsistency of the UI across the system, something that macOS isn’t free of, but offers a much more cohesive and consistent experience.

As I said, I don’t think Apple cutting support of devices or apps so quickly is absolutely a good thing, and I think they should provide more legacy support from now to all Apple Silicon machines, including the M1. But cutting the cord to old (7+ years), useless code, is beneficial for the platform efficiency.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cjsuk Avatar
15 weeks ago

Just add yet another wrinkle to the addage or user experience where macOS isn't really a legacy OS or an OS that supports legacy usage; it isn't like Windows where the UI might be modern and pretty but still allows for decades and decades of older software to run quite nicely; on macOS, you are lucky if you can run anything older than 2-3 years...this is yet another example of that.

So, I am not really surprised at this development; Apple wants its users and its developers to constantly be on the cutting edge in terms of hardware and software. If you want Unix/Linux legacy compability, macOS isn't where you will find it, you will be better off using an Open Source Unix/Linux OS instead...
You’re no better on windows. There are tonnes of broken APIs. And definitely not on Linux. Try dealing with .so hell.

The only reason they appear to work better is because most windows apps that rely on broken APIs are full of if statements and crap. I’ve written enough in my time. And on Linux the tested configuration is at distribution level so someone has done that legwork. There are plenty of problems in the periphery. And let’s not forget the old ELF switch over of course.

I would be surprised if you can get any Linux stuff that is not just talking to kernel API/ABI to actually work after 4-5 years. Especially GTK/Qt stuff. Unless you static link the entire thing.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jlc1978 Avatar
15 weeks ago

On ios after upgrading Apple teases you with a little cloud icon of abandoned apps. You can‘t copy the app over from the old to new device so you eventually lose them.
IMHO, that's as much a developer issue as an Apple issue. OS's evolve and things get deprecated over time, and if developers want to continue to stay in business they need to adapt their apps; especially if they use undocumented features. If an OS is designed to maintain 100% backward compatibility it would rapidly become a mess; although I think OS developers should work to ensure established API functionality remains available for a reasonable amount of time.


I personally I’m not interested in running older OS, and if I need to, I have an old 2014 Mac mini sleeping and connected to the local network ready to be awaken from my new M4 Mac mini. But I can understand there might be cases where an older version might be needed.
I would think, if running on older hardware is mission critical, you have it around to be used as test mules. I do that with an Intel MBA, for example.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jakey rolling Avatar
15 weeks ago

You’re no better on windows. There are tonnes of broken APIs. And definitely not on Linux. Try dealing with .so hell.
I mean, "it runs" is still within the definition of working better when the alternative is "it doesn't run."
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)