MacOS is the operating system that governs all Mac products intended for desktop use, in particular iMac and MacBook. This operating system is very fast, easy to use and practical enough to be able to perform most office and graphics tasks, with an eye to design (Macs are among the most beautiful computers around).
But if we wanted to try the operating system on our classic PC, without spending a fortune to buy a MacBook or an iMac, what should we do "> Download and try Linux systems on the PC (VDI on VirtualBox)
1) Minimum MacOS High Sierra requirements
To properly run the virtual machine with MacOS we need a PC with the following minimum requirements:
- Quad-core Intel CPU (Core i5 or i7)
- RAM of at least 12 GB
- 500 GB hard drive
- 2 GB video card of VRAM
- Windows 10 64bit
Features easily found in any PC released in the last 2-3 years, so it will not be a big problem to create the virtual machine with VirtualBox.
2) VirtualBox installation
As a first step we install Virtualbox on our PC chosen as the basis for running MacOS. The virtualization program can be downloaded for free from here -> VirtualBox .
Since we are using Windows as the basis for the virtual machine, we click on Windows Hosts to download the specific version for the Microsoft operating system.
We install the virtualization program (it's very simple, we must always click Next ) and start it, to find ourselves with a main screen of the program.
Now we are ready to create the virtual machine that will host MacOS High Sierra.
3) MacOS image download and virtual machine creation
In order to create the virtual machine we will have to use a ready-to-use disk image, in order to associate it directly with the machine that we will create later.
The image file that we are going to download weighs about 6 GB and can be downloaded for free from the following link -> MacOS High Sierra Image for Virtual Machine .
At the end of the download, we unpack the compressed archive (with WinRAR or 7-Zip ) and place the VMDK file in any position (also on the desktop).
Now open VirtualBox and click New on the top left and type the name MacOS High Sierra, so as to automatically compose the remaining fields.
Now click on Next and assign at least 4 GB of RAM to the virtual machine (4096 MB) but we can also assign more of it, so as to have a faster system.
We click again on Next and in the virtual hard disk creation screen we select Use an existing virtual hard disk file, going to select the image file downloaded just before (we can open the file manager by clicking on the icon on the side).
Finally, we click Create
3) Virtual machine optimization
Before we can start the virtual machine we will have to optimize it so that it looks like a Mac in all respects.
Right-click on the newly created MacOS virtual machine on VirtualBox and select Settings .
Let's go to the System menu and enable EFI for maximum compatibility, while in the Processor tab we bring to 2 the cores available for the virtual machine.
Finally let's go to the Screen menu and raise the video memory to the maximum allowed by the program, that is 128 MB.
We press OK and close VirtualBox to make the changes effective.
The last optimizations we will have to carry out from command prompt; open the Windows Start menu, search for cmd and right-click on the Command Prompt item, so you can select the Run as administrator item .
In the black window that you will see we will have to type special commands, just make sure to retrieve the exact name of the virtual machine (the one you chose in the first screen at the time of creation).
Launch one at a time and confirming the following commands at the end of each step.
cd "C: \ Program Files \ Oracle \ VirtualBox \"
VBoxManage.exe modifyvm "macOS virtual machine name" --cpuidset 00000001 000106e5 00100800 0098e3fd bfebfbff
VBoxManage setextradata "MacOS virtual machine name" "VBoxInternal / Devices / efi / 0 / Config / DmiSystemProduct" "iMac11, 3"
VBoxManage setextradata " MacOS virtual machine name " "VBoxInternal / Devices / efi / 0 / Config / DmiSystemVersion" "1.0"
VBoxManage setextradata "MacOS virtual machine name" "VBoxInternal / Devices / efi / 0 / Config / DmiBoardProduct" "Iloveapple"
VBoxManage setextradata "macOS virtual machine name" "VBoxInternal / Devices / smc / 0 / Config / DeviceKey" "(c) AppleComputerInc"
VBoxManage setextradata " macOS virtual machine name " "VBoxInternal / Devices / smc / 0 / Config / GetKeyFromRealSMC" 1
At the end we close the prompt and reopen VirtualBox; now the virtual machine is ready, we can start it at any time by selecting it and clicking Start .
Don't be surprised if you see a lot of writing and messages appearing and that the machine takes a lot of time on the first start, it's all normal!
After a few minutes we will see the MacOS welcome window appear, ready to create a new account and to use the virtualized Apple operating system.
We select the Italian language and the time zone of Italy to have an operating system translated into our language, we perform all the steps as if we were on a real Mac and in the end we enjoy the famous operating system interface with the lower bar (where you can find all the main programs and launchers) and the top bar, where you can access the settings, program menus and files stored on the disk (in this virtual case).
Obviously do not expect everything to work correctly or everything to be fast (some shots are normal), with virtualized systems there will always be a problem (after all it is not a real Mac system) but to understand what it means to use a Mac is a comfortable solution and fast, with all the main features that can be used without problems.
