Installing macOS on a Windows computer is possible. Thanks to VirtualBox we can have macOS on a PC with Windows 10. In the following article we will show you how you can create a virtual machine with macOS in a simple way.
Systems virtualization has become an advanced practice that is widely used in many companies today, as it allows us to use different operating systems on the same computer without affecting the host computer.
If you’ve always wanted to have a macOS computer , but you couldn’t afford it or you simply prefer a Windows computer because you use it for games or it is easier for you, now you can have macOS and Windows on the same computer at the same time.
macOS Catalina: iOS-based apps, abandoning iTunes and iPad as external display
Requirements to install macOS with VirtualBox
You must bear in mind that, not on all Windows computers we can install macOS since the Apple system requires a very powerful computer that also has Intel virtualization services active. Next, we show you what the requirements are:
- Have a system with more than 6 GB of RAM.
- Have a 3rd generation Intel processor onwards (to find out you will have to know if your processor model starts with 3XXX).
- Have VirtualBox installed in its latest version.
- Install the VirtualBox resource extension pack called VirtualBox Extension Pack, which you can download just below.
- Download the .iso file of the macOS system from the official website, in case you could have access to a macOS you can download the installation file from the AppStore, if you use Windows or another operating system you will have to download the following file by clicking on it link:
Web: Apple Downloads
Once you have downloaded the file you want to create the virtual machine, you will see that you have downloaded a file with the DMG format so you will have to convert the DMG file to an ISO file.
- Download the Scripts.txt file that we will use later for a virtual machine configuration.
Once we have all the requirements and meet them, we can start creating our macOS machine.
Install VirtualBox Extension Pack
For this we will have to have VirtualBox already installed, follow the following steps one by one to be able to have the Extension pack installed.
- Open VirtualBox.
- Now we must go to “File” and then to “Preferences”.
- Once inside, we will have to search for “Extensions”.
- We will press the “+” button located in the upper right part, we will look for the previously downloaded “Extension pack” file.
- We accept all windows and it will be installed.
Creating the macOS virtual machine
Now comes the fun, but at the same time very complex, so you must be very attentive and perform all the steps in the same way that they are explained below:
- We open VirtualBox and click on “New”.
- In the next window we will have to write the name of the virtual machine in our case macOS Catalina, we select macOS X and macOS X (64 bit) as the operating system .
- We add at least 4 GB of RAM and we must have the option marked “Create a virtual disk now.” It should be the same as the following image.
- Now in the next window we will have to select the size of the virtual hard disk which should be at least 40 GB , in our case we have chosen a 50 GB hard disk and the VDI option.
We already have our machine created, but before starting it we will have to change some parameters within its configuration.
Change macOS virtual machine settings
- We will click on the “Configuration” button of our virtual machine.
- In the System option and in the “Motherboard” tab we will have to have the “Enable EFI” option activated and deactivate the Floppy disk option.
- Now in the Processor tab we will have to add the maximum number of processors that our team allows us , we can see it thanks to the fact that we will have a red and green bar because we will have to place ourselves in the last green part, in our case we will have 6 cores available.
- Now we will go to the “Screen” section and select the maximum available , in our case 128 MB.
- Now in “USB”, we will have to select the last option, “USB 3.0 xHCI Controller”.
- Finally, in the “Storage” section we will have to select the empty disk and select a disk file in our case we will have to choose the previously downloaded iso file.
- The final step will be to click on “File” and “Exit”, so that VirtualBox collects all the modifications that we have created in our virtual machine.
Now comes the most complex step so you must do it to the letter, because if it is not done well, the virtual machine will not work.
- You will have to open the file “Scripts.txt” in which you will have to modify some things.
- Once open you will have to have something similar to the previous image, in the upper part you must have the VirtualBox installation path, which, if you have not changed it, will be the same, and where we have macOS Catalina in quotes you must put the name that you have put your virtual machine when you created it.
- Now we open a CMD or Command Prompt window, for this we will press the key combination “Start + R” and type CMD and press enter, now we will press the right button , all the contents of the previous file will be copied and we will press enter again.
- We have already created the necessary parameters for our virtual machine to be recognized by VirtualBox.
Start virtual machine
Once all the previous steps have been completed, now we have the most fun , because if everything has gone well we can enjoy macOS after a few more steps:
- We open VirtualBox and start our virtual machine.
- A screen will appear with a series of commands which will apply all the settings that we have previously added to our virtual machine.
- Once the configuration is finished, the Apple symbol will appear and after a short wait you will have the first step to install macOS inside the virtual machine.
- We select our language and click on “Next”.
- Now we will click on “Disk Utility” and we will erase the disk that we have created of 50 GB .
- Click on “Delete” and put the name we want, we will put “macOS Catalina”, this process is necessary for the system to convert the disk into its file format.
- Once the process is finished, we will click on accept and close the Disk Utility.
- The next step will be to click on “Install macOS”.
- Now we will click on “Continue”, “I accept” in the pop-up window we will also click on “I accept”.
- Now if everything goes well, a hard disk should appear with the name that we have put before , we select it and click on “Install”.
- We just have to wait for the operating system to be installed on the hard drive, this process will take a long time , so arm yourself with patience, the virtual machine will restart several times and you will have to wait until the following screen appears.
We must bear in mind that a system as powerful as macOS in our virtual machine can be somewhat slow or unstable, but you can use it whenever you want and in the same way as if you had a Mac computer at home.
Set up macOS Catalina
Once the operating system is installed and after a very long wait, we will have to configure the Mac as if we had just bought one , you must follow the following steps so that everything is fully configured and installed:
- The first step will be to choose our country.
- Now we have to choose the keyboard layout we want in our case we have the Spanish ISO keyboard.
- Then we will click on “Continue”.
- In this step we will have to select “Do not transfer any information now”.
- In this step we will be able to create our own Apple ID , to be able to download applications and have their automatic updates, but in our case we will click on “Configure later” and in the pop-up window we will click on “Skip”.
- Now we will accept the license agreement and we will put our data to create an account on our new Mac.
- In the next window we can configure the sending of usage statistics to Apple and the location services, but we will click directly on “Continue” until we reach the Siri configuration window.
- In this window if we want to configure Siri you can activate and configure it, in our case we will not activate it.
- Now we will choose the theme we want, as we can choose a light, dark or automatic theme.
We have already finished configuring our Mac so we can start using it and use it as if you had a fully functional computer.
We can see that we can use all the applications we want, install the ones we like the most and thus enjoy a new operating system.
Finally, we can see as if we click on the apple icon and later in “About this Mac” we can see that we have the Catalina version and the RAM that we have selected and which we could increase it in the virtual machine configuration.
As you have seen, installing a virtual machine is not easy at all, and even more so if it is Apple’s operating system, macOS , since it makes some steps even more difficult, since installing other operating systems is somewhat simpler and we hardly need knowledge of use like the command prompt among others.
