Apple Updates Boot Camp With WiFi Improvements and Bug Fixes

[Aoligei]

Don’t you need a specific TPM chip on the motherboard? Macs have the T2 chip for security, whereas I understood TPM was a specific chip similar but not the same, used by windows.

There is no TPM on any Macs nor you can do Secure Boot with Mac. However, there is work around that allows you to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. Microsoft doesn't seems to disallow updates on unsupported PC, at least I can update Windows 11 on my old PC just fine,.

 

[Nermal]

There currently is NO legal way to purchase a license of Windows for ARM.

All architecture versions of Windows (x86, x64, Arm) are covered under the same licence; you just need to buy Windows (e.g. 11) and you can use it on any architecture. Microsoft has explicitly stated this (with the proviso that while installing the Arm version yourself is not a supported scenario, it is not a licensing violation). Of course, I can't find the quote at the moment!

Edit: Found the quote from MS, quoted here but repeated below:

Yes customers can use retail copies to run Windows 10/11 on Macs, including ARM Macs. The Windows retail EULA does not have any use rights restrictions on the type of device you install Windows on. Note that the EULA does stipulate that not all versions of Windows are supported on all device types, so theoretically customers could run into compatibility issues with performance & support case by case, but this is not a licensing restriction. Customers can find more details on compatibility at https://aka.ms/minhw.

 

[Aoligei]

You can use a standard Windows 11 Pro license key to activate Windows 11 ARM on a Virtual Machine under macOS (I have done so), however I agree with you that Microsoft's current OEM licensing restrictions on Windows ARM most likely prevent Apple from creating a Boot Camp option for Apple Silicon Macs. The VM software companies like Parallels and VMWare are not OEMs (at least as defined by Microsoft) so they are able to support Windows ARM via VM.



I use Parallels. I used to be on single-purchase, but moved to the subscription plan awhile ago since I was upgrading every new version, anyway.

There are few hurdles for Windows ARM on Mac.

1. Microsoft doesn't sell individual licenses. So it is not technically use OEM version of ARM to install on your Mac. If you doesn't care about legality staff, I guess this isn't issue.

2. Microsoft does not provide drivers, it is up to Apple to provide devices drivers for Windows on ARM. I don't know if Apple has any intention to provide driver support for any Apple Silicon Macs. Even if Apple decided to release driver support for Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, it is unclear if Apple will retroactively provide drivers support for current M1 or M2 Macs.

 

[r8ders2k]

If this is available, I'm not seeing it.

Me too on my iMac (18,3) using Parallels Desktop 18 with an external SSD running Windows 10 Pro

 

[chickeneaster]

Can the 2015 and older Macs support the latest Windows?

 

[applefan69]

There is no TPM on any Macs nor you can do Secure Boot with Mac. However, there is work around that allows you to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. Microsoft doesn't seems to disallow updates on unsupported PC, at least I can update Windows 11 on my old PC just fine,.

Been waiting for an eventual bootcamp update, this post had my hopes up, but I knew better.

From what I understand the T2 equipped macs essentially have TPM chips. Whether anyone wants to officially support it or not is the question, but it is essentially exactly the same concept, if not literally the same thing. Or at least that is what I wish would happen.

 

[CWallace]

I haven't used boot camp in years, but I found it best to just to install drivers from the various hardware vendors (Intel, NVIDIA, etc). Is that not the right thing to do anymore?

Generally the only non-Apple driver I have ever used with my Boot Camp installations were AMD GPU drivers (and those had to be modded to work) since Apple and AMD seldom bothered offering newer drivers. There are also a number of "Apple OEM" devices where the drivers are only part of the Boot Camp support package.

Don’t you need a specific TPM chip on the motherboard? Macs have the T2 chip for security, whereas I understood TPM was a specific chip similar but not the same, used by windows.

As noted, Microsoft wanted Windows 11 to require TPM, but relented when people with older equipment without TPM complained and created workarounds, though Microsoft could eventually close those loopholes.

Parallels uses a "virtual TPM" for their Windows 11 VMs to meet the TPM requirement and I presume VMWare does something similar.

There are few hurdles for Windows ARM on Mac.

1. Microsoft doesn't sell individual licenses. So it is not technically use OEM version of ARM to install on your Mac. If you doesn't care about legality staff, I guess this isn't issue.

Microsoft Windows licenses are platform-agnostic and can be used with Windows x86 (32-bit), Windows x64 (64-bit) and Windows ARM64 (64-bit). The Microsoft Windows End User License Agreement (EULA) also does not specify what hardware you may install Windows on.

So I was able to install the Windows 11 ARM image from the Windows Insider Program in a VM on my MacBook Pro and then activated it with a fresh Windows 11 Pro license key. My situation is a bit unique in that I work at Microsoft so when I connected the VM to the corporate network it identified I was on a licensed and activated WIP version and promptly updated it to Windows Enterprise 11 ARM64 edition so I am on Build 22000.856 in the General Availability Channel as if I was running a "retail" copy (this is an identical build and Channel as the purchased Windows 11 retail copy I have on my Alienware gaming PC).

2. Microsoft does not provide drivers, it is up to Apple to provide devices drivers for Windows on ARM. I don't know if Apple has any intention to provide driver support for any Apple Silicon Macs. Even if Apple decided to release driver support for Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, it is unclear if Apple will retroactively provide drivers support for current M1 or M2 Macs.

This is a legitimate issue and concern. My VM is using a mix of generic and Parallels device drivers for the hardware to provide functionality, so Apple would need to write custom drivers for hardware that Microsoft does not have generic PNP drivers for.

 

[Spinnetti]

Hmm. No updates showing for me.

 

[Aoligei]

This is a legitimate issue and concern. My VM is using a mix of generic and Parallels device drivers for the hardware to provide functionality, so Apple would need to write custom drivers for hardware that Microsoft does not have generic PNP drivers for.

Consider Apple Silicon is customized version of ARM processor, unlike standard x86 processor, I am not sure if Windows will work with Apple Silicon without Microsoft written a specific version of Windows for Apple Silicon. This would be issue going forward is that Microsoft would need make special Windows for each Apple Silicon, I don't think Microsoft has any interest of doing so.

Just by looking at Linux development, I am not have my hope of Microsoft releasing a Windows version for Apple Silicon.

 

[Mlrollin91]

6.1.17 supported the Apple Studio Display and appears to have been released only to customers who have an ASD connected to their Mac. Seems reasonable to assume it is 6.1.16 with ASD drivers and perhaps the release of that update was prioritized over 6.1.16 to allow ASD owners to use their display with Windows?

I wonder if 6.1.16 fixes issues on every Intel Mac or if it only has fixes for certain models so only those models are being targeted (like 6.1.17 evidently was) and that is why people are not yet seeing it? (I have a 2020 iMac 5K.)

I have 6.1.17 installed on my 2020 5k iMac. I do not have an ASD. Seems weird that this is not 6.1.18, and instead 6.1.16.

 

[CWallace]

Consider Apple Silicon is customized version of ARM processor, unlike standard x86 processor, I am not sure if Windows will work with Apple Silicon without Microsoft written a specific version of Windows for Apple Silicon. This would be issue going forward is that Microsoft would need make special Windows for each Apple Silicon, I don't think Microsoft has any interest of doing so.

That Windows ARM64 edition runs on Apple Silicon in a VM is proof enough it can work if the driver support is there. Device Manager identifies the VM as an ARM64-based PC and the Processors show as Apple Silicon and are using a Microsoft-provided driver so it looks like Microsoft is aware of what an Apple Silicon SoC is.

 

[iPhoneFan5349]

What you can download and what you can license aren’t the same.

Why should I license it? It comes activated

 

[Marbles1]

Good stuff. For business use, intel Macs still have the edge. native x86 environments which can run pretty much everything, including any unusual / legacy business software.

I doubt we'll see a great shift to Apple Silicon for corporates until it gets bootcamp and official Microsoft support for windows 11.

 

[steve09090]

I have 6.1.17 installed on my 2020 5k iMac. I do not have an ASD. Seems weird that this is not 6.1.18, and instead 6.1.16.

I’m still waiting for the iPhone 9!

 

[svish]

Good to know. But unhappy that there is no BootCamp for Apple Silicon models.

 

[OnawaAfrica]

Are Apple/Microsoft ever going to release something that lets ARM Windows run on ARM Macs?

apple sayd if microsoft would license thair windows on arm there wouldnt be a problem to run it. however microsoft license for Win on ARM requires that its preinstalled on the Laptop. and also microsoft still has a agreement with qualcomm

 

[OnawaAfrica]

Good to know. But unhappy that there is no BootCamp for Apple Silicon models.

Complain to microsoft

 

[Rooster 🐓]

You can use Boot Camp to run Windows 10. I got mine forever ago using a Microsoft Insider account. Not sure if it still works that way.

I know, feels like forever moo! 🐄

Can’t believe it’s been 14 years this fall since I first put windows on my 2008 OG unibody MBP 💻

I remember thinking then why would anyone buy a windows only laptop. My late father worked in graphic design and always said apple were the best computers. Wished I’d bought shares in the 1990’s!! By coincidence he passed away the same day Steve Jobs did but the year before, bless them both, and Bootcamp.

Because the battery/HDD are accessible in the 2008 unibody MBP by simply removing a latch, when required I swapped out the battery for a new one and the HDD for an SSD. I doubled the RAM as you could do that also. It still works perfectly to this day.

It had been so good I only updated it with the last ever 16” intel MBP in 2020 for dual-booting lockdown home-working.

I accept why boot camp is no more and I’m looking forward to getting a MacBook Air M2 Midnight to check out apple silicon. Got the first ever MacBook Air Rev A and loved that with bootcamp also - my most loved laptop ever. I remember airport security swarming around it and inspecting it days after launch they’d seen nothing like it!

Bravo apple for still updating boot camp 👏🏻

 

[chucker23n1]

Consider Apple Silicon is customized version of ARM processor, unlike standard x86 processor,

The CPU isn't that big of an issue.

The HAL/device tree is. Those aren't standardized in ARM, and Apple doesn't really have a reason to offer a Qualcomm-compatible format. So Windows doesn't have the right adapter to discover available devices.

 

[theluggage]

apple sayd if microsoft would license thair windows on arm there wouldnt be a problem to run it. however microsoft license for Win on ARM requires that its preinstalled on the Laptop. and also microsoft still has a agreement with qualcomm

They were talking about running windows in a VM. Apple explicitly said that they won’t support direct booting of alternative OSs.

The “you can’t legally buy Windows for ARM” thing quietly ceased to be true last year - see the quote from Microsoft earlier in this thread. The rumoured Qualcomm agreement may be what’s stopping them from officially endorsing it and allowing official “bundles”.

The real problem is that BootCamp-on-Apple Silicon is technically far more complex than BootCamp on Intel Mac. It would need new drivers for everything (particularly accelerated graphics) as well as, probably, patches to Windows itself to work with Apple Silicon firmware and boot systems. A VM can just translate & pass calls to the MacOS drivers, and emulate already-supported firmware and hardware.

Native Windows-for-Apple Silicon isn’t impossible, but would probably mean a collaboration between MS and Apple - and it’s really not clearly in either of their interests. The Asahi Linux folk are having to reverse engineer ASI hardware and firmware themselves - plus they’re legally able to read and modify the Linux source (and seem to have the enthusiastic support of High Penguin Torvalds himself).

 

[chucker23n1]

Apple explicitly said that they won’t support direct booting of alternative OSs.

This isn't quite right. They do explicitly have facilities to allow other OSes to boot, and Asahi Linux makes use of those.

Apple (according to the Asahi folks) hasn't really thrown in deliberate roadblocks. They just aren't helping the project either.

The real problem is that BootCamp-on-Apple Silicon is technically far more complex than BootCamp on Intel Mac. It would need new drivers for everything (particularly accelerated graphics) as well as, probably, patches to Windows itself to work with Apple Silicon firmware and boot systems.

Yep.

You need a whole bunch of drivers (ranging from things like the keyboard, which on the M2 MacBook Air is no longer USB but a custom SPI protocol, to more obvious ones like the GPU), and you need a device tree of sorts (what Windows calls a HAL, and macOS calls the IO Registry) to even figure out what devices exist. That's standardized on x86, was standardized in OpenFirmware on PowerPC Macs (I'm not quite sure how it worked pre-OpenFirmware, but I think pre-OpenFirmware was also pre-PCI?), and isn't standardized at all on ARM; Qualcomm has one way of doing it, Apple has another. I'm not sure about Raspberry Pi; Broadcom's might be similar or the same as Qualcomm.

A VM can just translate & pass calls to the MacOS drivers, and emulate already-supported firmware and hardware.

Yup. The CPU virtualization is already done by Apple's Hypervisor.framework, and the device tree and available devices can just imitate whatever Windows likes / already has drivers for, regardless of what's physically correct.

(Plus, VirtIO standardizes this further, where something like macOS's Virtualization.framework can provide a virtual network adapter and virtual disk drive, an engine like Parallels can pass that through, and Windows can come with suitable drivers built in.)

Native Windows-for-Apple Silicon isn’t impossible, but would probably mean a collaboration between MS and Apple

It depends on the extent. Basic stuff should be possible for Microsoft to do; Asahi Linux has done it. Apple may frown on more advanced aspects such as reverse-engineering the GPU. Some devices like the camera might just work out of the box.

 

[Piplodocus]

Well, most Windows apps on ARM still run through x86 translation, and Microsoft's implementation isn't nearly as good as Rosetta. So there's still going to be some performance hits.

Yep, but say I'm trying to run an x86 game on Windows ARM - it's gonna be a hit turning x86 to ARM regardless. Nothing I can do about that. Then try run that all in a virtual machine with the additional overheads and the shared resources and that can add enough of a performance hit not to bother.

 

[Piplodocus]

The CPU isn't that big of an issue.

The HAL/device tree is. Those aren't standardized in ARM, and Apple doesn't really have a reason to offer a Qualcomm-compatible format. So Windows doesn't have the right adapter to discover available devices.

Doesn't the original bootcamp emulate PC BIOS from an intel system without it? If so would it be that hard for an A-Si Bootcamp to emulate the HAL/device tree so windows thinks it's basically that? Then Apple additionally provide any windows drivers required to fully implement it?

(Apologies my memory forgets some of the terminology as it's not something I've looked into for a while, but I built a Hackintosh about 14 years ago and used to run bootcamp on the old Mac, but forget most of the stuff about the early days of bootcamp).

 

[MacsRgr8]

Nothing showing for me either. Not in macOS nor Windows.

On a 27" iMac 2017 i7 with Radeon 580 Pro, Windows 10.

I do have the February 2022 drivers from BootCampDrivers installed, as these are updated AMD graphics drivers for the Radeon 580 (the official March 2022 Boot Camp drivers have older Radeon 580 drivers) so maybe that's interfering..?

 

[OnawaAfrica]

They were talking about running windows in a VM. Apple explicitly said that they won’t support direct booting of alternative OSs.

The “you can’t legally buy Windows for ARM” thing quietly ceased to be true last year - see the quote from Microsoft earlier in this thread. The rumoured Qualcomm agreement may be what’s stopping them from officially endorsing it and allowing official “bundles”.

The real problem is that BootCamp-on-Apple Silicon is technically far more complex than BootCamp on Intel Mac. It would need new drivers for everything (particularly accelerated graphics) as well as, probably, patches to Windows itself to work with Apple Silicon firmware and boot systems. A VM can just translate & pass calls to the MacOS drivers, and emulate already-supported firmware and hardware.

Native Windows-for-Apple Silicon isn’t impossible, but would probably mean a collaboration between MS and Apple - and it’s really not clearly in either of their interests. The Asahi Linux folk are having to reverse engineer ASI hardware and firmware themselves - plus they’re legally able to read and modify the Linux source (and seem to have the enthusiastic support of High Penguin Torvalds himself).

you are wrong. Craig sayd there is no obstacle from Apple to run Windows on M Series NATIVELY. The only problem is microsoft