Don’t update macOS VMs to 14.2 or 14.2.1 if you use shared folders

If you run macOS virtual machines (VMs) on Apple silicon Macs using lightweight virtualisation, you may wish to avoid updating those VMs to macOS Sonoma 14.2 or 14.2.1 for the moment. If you do, then they will lose any shared folders they have previously used in 14.1.2 and earlier.

I’m very grateful to Richard for alerting me to this.

VMs running macOS 14.1.2 and earlier can still use shared folders just fine when the host Mac is running 14.2 or 14.2.1 (or earlier). But if you update a VM to 14.2 or 14.2.1, when it restarts the shared folders are missing. This also affects new VMs built using IPSW image files for 14.2 and 14.2.1: even though your virtualiser may configure shared folders without error, they aren’t made available when running that VM.

Although this has so far only been tested against my own virtualisers, Viable and Vimy, I expect that this applies to all macOS virtualisers on Apple silicon. I’d welcome anyone using other virtualisers to confirm whether they are also affected.

I will be reporting this to Apple in a Feedback later today, and will update this article with details of that.

[Updated 0955 GMT 20 December 2023 with details on new VMs.]