THOUGHTS:
It works… after too many hours, I had success with a 4-processor, 8GB (memory), 100GB (storage) virtual machine running under either Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation 15.5.1
It’s slow, VERY slow, despite running on the latest i7-8* processors with a GTX 1060 to do graphics acceleration, it’s painfully slow compared to ANY other virtual machine running. MacOS 9, Fedora, Ubuntu ran circles around Catalina with lesser specs.
It’s not worth the effort. I’m glad I did it so that I understand what’s possible with Mac OS X as a virtual machine, but it’s way too underperforming compared to any other OS as a virtual machine.
These are all my notes for anyone else who wants to try:
1) REFERENCES:
1) HOW-TO:
1a) Install MacOS X 10.15.2 Catalina on Windows PC:
https://www.geekrar.com/install-macos-catalina-on-virtualbox-on-windows-pc/
1b) Install MacOS X 10.15.2 Catalina on VMware:
https://techsprobe.com/install-macos-catalina-vmware-windows/
1c) Install MacOS X Unlockr 3.0.2 for VMware 10-15 on Windows 7-10:
https://www.sysprobs.com/vmware-workstation-8-0-8-0-1-unlocker-to-run-mac-os-x-guest-in-windows-7
1d) Convert Virtualbox VMs to VMware:
https://www.howtogeek.com/125640/how-to-convert-virtual-machines-between-virtualbox-and-vmware/
2) LINKS:
2a) Download MacOS X 10.15.2 Catalina ISO for VMware and Virtualbox: https://www.geekrar.com/download-macos-catalina-iso-for-vmware-virtualbox/
2b) Download latest MacOS X Catalina images:
https://www.geekrar.com/download-macos-catalina-vmware-virtualbox-image-latest-version/
2c) Download latest VMware Unlockr (maintained by Paolo after Donk stopped):
https://github.com/paolo-projects/unlocker
3) WINDOWS VIRTUALBOX – EXTRADATA
cd “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\”
VBoxManage.exe modifyvm “MacOSX Catalina” –cpuidset 00000001 000106e5 00100800 0098e3fd bfebfbff
VBoxManage setextradata “MacOSX Catalina” “VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct” “iMac11,3”
VBoxManage setextradata “MacOSX Catalina” “VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion” “1.0”
VBoxManage setextradata “MacOSX Catalina” “VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct” “Iloveapple”
VBoxManage setextradata “MacOSX Catalina” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/DeviceKey” “ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc”
VBoxManage setextradata “MacOSX Catalina” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC” 1