If they are updating bootcamps, it means there is some hope windows arms will become a reality, one day.
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Apple's Boot Camp Gains Precision Touchpad Driver Update and Bug Fixes
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No, it really doesn't.
Running Windows for ARM natively on Macs isn't impossible and could happen but it is a far more complex and expensive job than the original Intel Bootcamp - for reasons that have already been posted in this, and previous threads on the subject.
There's a reason it's called "Bootcamp assistant" - most of what it does on Intel is provide a user-friendly way of setting up a dual-boot Windows/MacOS system & creating a customised Windows installer that works around the niggling differences between an Intel Mac and a regular PC. In the past, some Intel Macs could just boot straight from a bog standard Windows install disc & install Windows - if you didn't mind overwriting MacOS. ARM-based systems just aren't that well standardised yet, and Apple Silicon Macs are more like iPads than any existing Windows-on-ARM system.
Sad but true. It's just not clear that there's a business case for doing it. Apple probably only did BootCamp on Intel because it was "low hanging fruit" and stopped people bricking their Macs by trying to use the "open-source" method that had already been achieved.
Even on Intel, it was pretty marginal: If you just had a couple of Windows apps that you needed from time to time then virtualization was always a far more convenient solution (vs. having to inflexibly partition your hard drive, re-boot to switch OSs, find some way of accessing HFS on Windows and/or NTFS on Mac...) so you had to be running something that really needed the extra performance to justify BootCamp.
The best you could do with "bootcamp" on Apple Silicon would be to run Windows for ARM - a minority operating system that is struggling to take off amongst PC users, only runs on a couple of tablets/2-in-one PCs and which still relies on Microsoft's equivalent of Rosetta for most software. Maybe it will take off in the future, but today you probably wouldn't choose a Windows-on-ARM PC if you needed top performance.
As widely explained in the last half-dozen threads on this subjectb (and subsequently ignored in the next thread), that ceased to be true with the release of Windows 11 on ARM last year, since when it has been possible to download a "production" version of Windows on ARM, install it on Parallels (or, now, Fusion) and purchase a valid license for it. It's not supported - so if it breaks you get to keep both halves - but it is licensed (or MS would have C&D'd Parallels with extreme prejudice by now) & gets all the updates. Not sure how much actual support you'd have got out of MS for an Intel BootCamp or VM system, anyway...
What the rumored Qualcomm deal might be doing is standing in the way of MS official support and/or Parallels or Apple acting as an OEM and bundling/supporting a branded copy of Windows (and the last time I recall that happening was something like 'SoftWindows 98' on PPC).
That was a far easier job than creating BootCamp for Apple Silicon.
~2006, the key missing pieces were a BIOS compatibility module for the Mac's EFI firmware and a disc partitioning tool for GUID-formatted drives. EFI/GPT was an emerging industry standard, initiated by Intel, and designed as the standard firmware for future PCs. ISTR the secret sauce was taking an existing open source BIOS implementation and using it to make a free EFI BIOS compatibility layer. (I assume that Apple just had to open their cheque book and license a proprietary BIOS). At that point, you could stick a regular Windows XP DVD and install away, then download the bog-standard Windows drivers from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA et. al.
I am not for one moment dismissing the efforts and ingenuity of the people who cracked this - it's just not the same magnitude of task as direct-booting Windows on Apple Silicon and providing bare-metal drivers for all the functions now included in the Apple Silicon SoC - including, but not limited to, accelerated graphics drivers.
Ask the Asahi Linux people how easy it is - and they're working with a 100% open source operating system which means that they've not only got full access to the kernel and all the existing drivers - plus they seem to be getting enthusiastic support from Linus Torvalds himself.
Also, nobody is asking these two crucial questions:
1. Does it really help Apple to promote Windows (and, hence, MS products and services) as an alternate operating system, over MacOS with its tight integration with Apple services?
2. Does it really help Microsoft to promote a hardware platform that will thrash the pants off any Windows-on-ARM system in the immediate pipeline? Which uses a proprietary processor which can't be licensed by MS, Dell, Lenovo, HP etc... Qualcomm, Samsung etc. might compete with or beat Apple Silicon in the future (and there are already several high-end server class ARM chips), but currently Apple are the only people with in-production ARM-based chips aimed at powerful laptops and desktops. If Microsoft supported WoA on Apple Silicon too enthusiastically, they'd be putting the short-term future of Windows-on-ARM in Apple's hands.
Looks like you may be right, they are apparently using Ampere Altra CPUs.
On microsoft’s side, it doesn’t matter for them if people run windows on a mac or a lenovo as long as they buy a license. Maybe having some competition would entice qualcomm to improve their products. I agree with your post overall, but maybe it won’t be necesarilly bad for microsoft having bootcamp for apple silicon.
Anyway, I don’t see apple nor microsoft writing drivers for apple silicon systems, and virtualization works like a charm. I’m running a windows 11 vm on parallels on an M1 mini and it’s really fast. Also crossover is a viable solution depending on the app you need to run.
It's not just writing some drivers. The new Macs are now longer a (Wintel) PC from a hardware viewpoint.
VMWare Fusion Player for M1 with Windows 11 Arm64 seems like an option for the future. Still flaky, but someday it will be good.
On the Intel side, VMWare Fusion Player (Free) works very nicely.
vmware Fusion has a user-favorable licensing model, but as you said, not ready for M1 yet. Parallels works well, but their licensing model is expensive and annoying.
I couldn't download either the 6.1.16 or the 6.1.18 update, but I did finally get this 6.1.19 download. (Not that it actually addressed that one specific issue that I was most hoping it would remedy... but whatever; at least I have a workaround.)
I have a hunch that all of these Bootcamp packages are in some way machine specific; the first applies to one set of chipsets, the second to another, and this one to a third. I would not be in the slightest surprised if, between the three of them, they still haven't come even close to covering every recent IntelMac config; if yours is a less popular config or if the hardware for a given subcomponent has gone out of support with the OEM for that component, or if some other random complexity muddled things... there's no telling how long you might have to wait for an update, if one comes at all.
Product diversification has its advantages... and its disadvantages.
The most straightforward way would be:I mistakenly deleted Apple Software Updatewhat can I do to re-download it
- Reboot into macOS,
- use the Bootcamp utility to download the Windows support software,
- copy it to someplace that you can get to from Windows, (such as a USB stick)
- reboot back into Windows and reinstall.
Genuinely curious, but also kind of bragging. What is your problem with updates and eGPU set up?
I have been running bootcamp with an eGPU as my daily driver for years. Yes originally getting it working was major pain in the ass, something along lines of 1) get computer booting off internal GPU, 2) install drivers for external GPU, 3) start computer up running off monitors ran from the eGPU ONLY. Took me forever to discover this process, but now that I have it works like clockwork even IF I have a problem updating.
Maybe it is because im using an AMD GPU? It seems to handle eGPU in windows quite well with something called AMD Xconnect Technology. Perhaps AMD is the reason this works so well.
Yeah, especially if you have an eGPU, you have to be really careful. Yeah, the control-panel itself is kind of flaky. If I set it to boot back to Mac, and close the panel, then restart, it works. If I set it to Mac, then hit the restart on the control panel, it freezes up. Instills confidence, for sure!
I'm going to try and find some way to make an image backup of my Windows first, or maybe just build a new copy on a different SSD. No way I'm going to just try and run the update with my setup. I've got *many* hours of work into getting it going.
Yes, or direct hardware access. I mentioned in the other thread, I couldn't mine crypto, or play Planetside 2 in a VM. It just isn't even possible. If BootCamp ever stops working, I'll pretty much have to buy a PC, which will suck in a number of ways (but, with a few benefits too, I suppose).
Yeah, I'm kind of excited about that. I have my mouse handy, but not being able to use the trackpad hardly at all has been quite a pain.
It won't work for some things. If it works for what you need to do, I'd absolutely go that route. There are many advantages. But, VMs won't do some things that require direct hardware access.
Yeah, it was relatively easy and created a core feature for people who needed to run Windows. Even then, they didn't put a whole lot of effort and polish into it.
The problem is, I think there is still a good business case, as many of us need to do Windows things. I'm not sure Apple cares all that much. We're not the target market any longer.
Yeah, the Services thing is a whole other topic (IMO, biggest mistake Apple has been making these days). But, it isn't about promoting Windows, just the reality that many users need access to it. That said, *most* typical business users are needing it less and less, and for those who do, running in a VM will work better anyway.
Oh my... just go over to egpu.io forums and read some threads. You got really lucky!
You're right that once you figure out the several dozen specific steps & sacrifice the chicken in the right lunar phase, it all works pretty well and is stable, as long as you can keep updates from ruining it.
I have a set of steps I can reproduce to make my 2018 mini w/ Blackmagic eGPU work (AMD). But, it took a long time and a lot of experimenting to get there. Once I did, I disabled updates (as that took it out once, and lead to another long time of trying to get it running again).
The inconsistent thing (which made the testing so difficult), is that at one point in the steps, you have to blind-boot and *maybe* it will start working. But, you don't know if you have to try this 3 times, or 15 times, hard-powering down when it doesn't work and trying again. Once it 'takes' it does seem to just keep working after that. I'm assuming Windows has to 'see' some hardware addressing properly, and then it sets it in the registry, and works after that. (It seems to be some kind of hardware addressing and memory management issue that never gets fixed. AMD & Microsoft would need to work together to address it, and there must not be enough eGPU users for them to care to do so.)
Um. No poop Sherlock.
ARM windows could run natively if Apple writes some drivers for sound, usb and graphics. MS needs to give their blessings for ARM windows to be used outside of Qualcomm based PCs.
M1’s will never do x86 VMs. They can do ARM VMs, and Windows 11 ARM runs most x86 stuff with very little performance penalty. Now, come out with a boot camp 2.0 that allows native booting of ARM windows with a GPU driver from Apple that perhaps supports DX12.. baby you’ve got yourself a stew.
There's no such option in Boot Camp (macOS utility) in you have already installed Win 10/11, you can only wipe out Windows partition
But could you do those things at all on Windows for ARM?
On Intel Macs, BootCamp basically turned the Mac into a "real PC" running "real Windows" as used by ~90% of the world, with an x86 processor and Intel or AMD GPU (running Intel's and AMD's graphics drivers & designed with DirectX in mind).
"Bootcamp" on Apple Silicon would almost certainly give better performance than a VM but you'd still be running the fledgling ARM version of Windows as used by approximately 0% of the market - on hardware that was unconventional even by ARM hardware standards, and an Apple GPU that was designed specifically to integrate with Metal & optimised tile-based rendering.
It's no good having direct hardware access if there aren't ARM drivers for the hardware you want to use, or if your application is optimised for NVIDIA/AMD GPUs. Yes, WoA has x86 translation/emulation that will run many Windows x86 applications quite well - but that's still "second prize" if what you really want is a proper Windows x86 machine.
...and that's why I think the business case for Bootcamp has gone. Apple are supporting VMs (Parallels, Fusion, QEMU, Docker etc. all now use the hypervisor framework built into MacOS) and all reports are that Windows for ARM runs pretty well in Parallels, and can compete performance-wise with a Surface X (not that the Surface X represents the pinnacle of PC performance!). Most people previously using Windows via VM will be perfectly happy - whereas a lot of Intel Bootcamp users still wouldn't be satisfied with the limitations of BootCamp-on-ARM.
...and I bet you an Internet that you wouldn't buy a Surface X or any other Windows on ARM machine.
No particular reason why Bootcamp should stop working on Intel Macs, until Intel Macs stop working.
I suppose it's possible that you're simply using an older version of macOS than I'm using... but for me, it's right there in the menus, and looks something like this:There's no such option in Boot Camp (macOS utility) in you have already installed Win 10/11, you can only wipe out Windows partition
Thanks 😳 I did not know 👍I suppose it's possible that you're simply using an older version of macOS than I'm using... but for me, it's right there in the menus, and looks something like this:
No problem at all.
Are you by any chance a "Windows convert"? Because one thing I've observed is that people who are more familiar with Windows than they are with macOS tend to overlook that menubar, all the way the heck up there at the top of the screen.
There was a Windows update last Spring that broke eGPU compatibility completely. I hadn’t figured out how to stop automatic updates yet but rolling back took a lot of doing. I think most of us are on AMD cards because Nvidias don’t work in macOS. My startup process is completely different by the way. I have to go right up to the Windows startup on the iGPU and then switch the display cable to log in. Nothing else works. Judging by forums, there are as many rituals as there are hardware combinations. You got lucky if yours can handle updates 😀 I really hope it lasts!
Finally, a top-rated comment actually relevant to the posted story! Yes, I’m wondering if the trackpad and even bluetooth issues have actually been sorted now.
I really hope so, otherwise a Mac running Windows will always be suboptimal compared to a PC running Windows.
Have you tested it? After looking into INF believe Bluetooth driver isn't related to 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro...
@mopi74 Direct link to Boot Camp Update 6.1.19:I mistakenly deleted Apple Software Update
@MacRumors Why not provide direct link to update in the article? That makes things way more convenient.
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Judging from the format of that URL, Apple clearly does not intend for consumers to access it directly in that fashion. I would speculate that MacRumors is just honoring those intentions, given that they recommended Apple's officially supported method for obtaining the download.
After all, we've already discussed earlier in the thread the notion that these updates are likely to be machine specific. So unless you know with absolute certainty that no harm would come to your Windows installation by your attempting to install the wrong version, or you're willing to accept the risks... I'd advise that you stick with Apple's officially supported methods.