Correction: you can't run x86_64 applications right now: I'm certain ARM64 apps work just fine. Also, x86_64 emulation is coming to ARM Windows.
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Developer Successfully Virtualizes Windows for Arm on M1 Mac
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But still, why would Apple even install Boot Camp Assistant on Apple Silicon Macs? That just seems bonkers.
Indeed. For all those nay-sayers months ago saying windows cannot be virtualized on Apple Silicon ... eat your heart out! Someone figured it out ... but I'm sure cannot be publicly downloaded for fear of licensing court fees from being sued from Microsoft??
If Microsoft is smart they'll get their act together VERY soon and begin licensing ARM Windows 10 and Windows X when it is ready! They should and probably are in early talks with Intel/AMD/etc to get a proper working chipset and cpu's on ARM for laptops (business/consumer) and desktops (sciences/corporate/consumer) for the next 3yrs.
This is for migration of Windows users going to Mac for ARM M1 chips. I know at first glance it makes you really wonder and hope.
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Developer Alexander Graf has successfully virtualized the Arm version of Windows on an M1 Mac, proving that the M1 chip is capable of running Microsoft's operating system (via The 8-Bit).
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Currently, Macs with the M1 chip do not support Windows and there is no Boot Camp feature as there is on Intel Macs, but support for Windows is a feature that many users would like to see.
Using the open-source QEMU virtualizer, Graf was able to virtualize the Arm version of Windows on Apple's M1 chip, with no emulation. Since the M1 chip is a custom Arm SoC, it is no longer possible to install the x86 version of Windows or x86 Windows apps using Boot Camp, as was the case with previous Intel-based Macs. However, he said in a Tweet that when virtualized on an M1 Mac, "Windows ARM64 can run x86 applications really well. It's not as fast as Rosetta 2, but close."
Graf was able to run the Windows ARM64 Insider Preview by virtualizing it through the Hypervisor.framework. Apple says this allows users to interact with virtualization technologies without having to write kernel extensions (KEXTs).
Graf applied a custom patch to the QEMU virtualizer, which is said to be known for "achieving near-native performance" by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. This means that the Arm version of Windows can be virtualized on M1 Macs with excellent performance.
Although Graf's experiment is still at an early stage, he believes others could reproduce his results. "It's early days for this. It's definitely possible to reproduce my results - all patches are on the mailing list - but don't expect a stable, fully functional system yet," he said. Above all, Graf has demonstrated that Windows is able to run on M1 Macs.
Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi recently said that Windows coming to M1 Macs is "up to Microsoft." The M1 chip contains the core technologies needed to run Windows, but Microsoft has to decide whether to license its Arm version of Windows to Mac users.
See Graf's full process for virtualizing the Arm version of Windows for more information.
Article Link: Developer Successfully Virtualizes Windows for Arm on M1 Mac
well I’m happy to be proven wrong. But then any chances of Microsoft offering arm64 version of windows 10 for public download is next to zero. It will continue to be delivered via OEMs as is the case now
its interesting to note that apple says that m1 chips are capable of running Microsoft Windows 10 for arm64 but then probably Microsoft will blame apple for making it too difficult for windows 10 for arm64 for arm to run under bootcamap. Instead of working together I’d say Microsoft and apple will fight over it and blame one other for not making bootcamp work.
Instead of negotiating the slippery slope of App Store commissions, why wouldn't Apple offer a version of the M1 (called something else entirely and private-labelled) for Microsoft exclusively in exchange for Windows ARM Bootcamp? Microsoft gets a huge boost in hardware performance for its Surface (for which the market is larger) and Apple gets an ARM license.
Both trillion-dollar companies would win
- Apple sells more chips (while selling no fewer computers)
- Apple gets the dual-boot capability
- Microsoft gets greater differentiation in its hardware (power and battery life)
- Microsoft sells quite a few more Windows licenses to Mac users for the foreseeable future
...while Intel, Qualcomm and other PC hardware makers would lose.
Just a hypothetical. I'm not saying it will happen or even should happen. But if I were sitting in the executive board room of either company, I'd be bringing it up and making sure everyone plays the movie through.
For those of you who can’t understand why Microsoft hasn’t rushed out a version of Windows for Apple Silicon in the last 10 days, the code that they have today is not at a place where customers expect it to be. After they complete the next cycle of development they will have the product that we all would expect. Look to the end of April for a update.
Windows is a legacy business for Microsoft, not one that matters much in the grand scheme of things compared to their cloud and other offerings.
Microsoft is all about being everywhere these days and from a purely financial perspective each retail license of Windows on ARM for Mac would depending on the specific OEM be worth 3-5x net profit to Microsoft that an OEM license bings in.
I can confirm.
My sister-in-law just gave us her old laptop, so that my daughter can use it for school and stuff.
Old Toshiba laptop with an i3 and 8GB of RAM (shared memory for graphics).
Works fine, no problem at all.
Haven't tested it for games, apart from retro gaming with Retroarch, so I can't comment on that.
Everything else if OK. It's more a question of making sure not too many apps automatically start with Windows (such as Skype or OneDrive).
They will, as soon as there are more PCs using ARM.
And there will be more PCs using ARM when there will be more AAA games and pro apps made to run on ARM.
And there will be more AAA games and pro apps made to run on ARM when there will be more PCs using ARM, and a Windows for ARM available.
Looks like we're going to run in circles here...
For us Apple-Silicone-Computers are nice to play with - but without Windows in parallel not usable in day to day work (medical private practice).
We are testing now a Windows only solution.
In private I bought a Mac Mini 16GB for further studies, it is a nice machine with some artifacts and blackouts on the second 4k display (hdmi). The Apple Pro Display XDR works perfectly.
We are testing now a Windows only solution.
In private I bought a Mac Mini 16GB for further studies, it is a nice machine with some artifacts and blackouts on the second 4k display (hdmi). The Apple Pro Display XDR works perfectly.
Have you tried with CrossOver or if there’s an old Mac version of it, with these compatibility things going on (like how they do to run the old legacy version of Mac Diablo). I haven’t tried in depth these though, tried to run Diablo but seemed too cumbersome and ended up using a Diablo GoG on Mac tutorial to launch it.
try the .net core before v 3.0 and now 5.0 . haish.. The .net core is nice but non standardize and cannot port via versa windows and macos. Those sql server docker high ram usage so i cannot install in my imac 2017 kaboom before. I like to code sql procedure in sql server but really hate in mysql
Windows has WOW64.... It has been seen Windows 7
... its not possible to run 32-bit apps on 64-bit OS unless you have WOW64 in Windows directory. What other x86 architecture would you wanna run on Intel anyway?
Not true. I’d like to direct your attention to the Surface Pro X (or a handful of other machines from Samsung and Lenovo) a device that has been on the market in excess of a year, and runs Windows 10 Pro on ARM. Microsoft builds and packages the same updates for both architectures. It has full x86 application support, x86-64 in insider preview rings (equivalent to MacOS Public Betas) and projected for public roll-out by end of year.
Because Apple does not do that with any of their products.
Why do you think that Apple cares about getting a license for Windows on ARM? If this was an important thing to Apple, do you think they were incapable of having this negotiation with Microsoft before the product launched? There were companies who were seeded Apple Silicon hardware before the launch at WWDC as they were in the keynote. If Apple felt that having Windows on ARM was important, Microsoft would have been one of those.
Apple does not have a chip business and has no interest in having one. They have made it clear that they design everything for each machine together. Specialized hardware works with specialized software. As an example, Apple Silicon has native support for Swift and Objective-C reference counting.
Based on Apple public statements, less than 1% of Apple users dual boot. They will gain many more users who want to fun iOS/iPadOS apps natively on the machines than they will lose from Windows users.
Something that is bad for Apple, and not something Microsoft really wants. They build the Surface line to have a nice reference platform, in the same way that Google does with the Pixel line. It is not a primary revenue generator for them.
According to Apple, 1% of Macintosh owners run bootcamp, and 5% use Windows virtualized. If Apple’s hardware remains enough ahead of Windows PCs, the likelihood of the higher cost specialized software being ported increases, which is better for Apple and better for its customers.
Many people don't know this, you may not (/Edit) know this but Bootcamp is not needed to install Windows on an Intel Mac, I installed Windows without bootcamp, just for fun though, I don't need Windows nor do I care about Windows.
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And, obviously, the Snapdragon 875 is the only ARM processor available on the market, right???
Among others, Nvidia have their own ageing Tegra X1 chip, which is still quite powerful nowadays (is there any Android TV box more powerful than the Shield?).
And, as previously said elsewhere on the forum, I'm really curious to see what Nvidia will do with the technology.
Their projects development (Denver -> Carmel -> Xavier) seem to follow a steady path.
Orin is/was supposed to arrive next year or in 2022, but the pandemic probably derailed the development.
There will probably be a new Shield TV sooner or later and we'll see where they are on the "is it powerful enough?" scale.
Problem is, apart from the Shield (or the Jetson), they seem to be mostly invested in self-driving/AI technologies.
Wait and see if they'll also venture in other areas.
Note that I mentioned Nvidia because of their more consumer-friendly orientation thanks to the Shield.
A few steps above you'll Fujitsu's A64fx, which is maybe/probably/please-do-not-beat-me the most powerful ARM processor on the market right now.
It's also crazily expensive - close to $10,000 USD for one processor if I'm not mistaken.
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This makes sense. Microsoft is adding support for x86_64 apps to Windows on ARM. And I’m sure Microsoft has made a few calls to Qualcomm to the tune of “if Apple can make it work...”
Microsoft was one of the companies seeded Apple Silicon before WWDC since Apple previewed Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I think Apple views a native version of Office as more critical than the ability to run Windows.
That said, Apple has no real reason to oppose Microsoft releasing a version of Windows that will run in virtualization. Craig Federighi told Ars Technica that the decision is Microsoft’s, but that the technology is there for Microsoft to make it work if they want to.
If perhaps 5 million Mac users (about 5% of the Mac installed base) pay $100 for a retail version, that’s $500 million. Not much to a company like Microsoft, but if they want to showcase ARM as a viable platform for Windows, Apple users would be giving them better than free publicity.