Developer Successfully Virtualizes Windows for Arm on M1 Mac

[spinedoc77]

I wish MS could just use the M1 on its devices, this seems very embarrassing for their current ARM performances. Kudos to Apple for making a hell of a CPU. A M1 CPU in a surface pro would be incredible and might fulfill what is so far a broken promise by Intel and even Qualcomm. I would honestly switch over to a Mac if they only had a tablet with MacOS on it.

With that said I'm still curious as to how x86 (and eventually x64) run, not only performance but battery life. That's the issue with current solutions such as the surface Pro-X, it does the job but once it starts to emulate x86 battery life is not much better than just using Intel.

 

[its93rc]

I’d pay for Windows on my M1 Macbook Pro. Sometimes it’s neat to have it.

 

[Alan Wynn]

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 was my point (sorry if I did not call it out more clearly). If Apple cared about Windows on Apple Silicon, they would have it.

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.

They do have a reason, but it might not be enough to push them to prevent it. If Apple is able to keep the Apple Silicon CPU far enough ahead of the AMD/Intel equivalent and begins to follow their pricing model from the iPhone/iPad family (keeping older generations around at a reduced price), they may be able to increase their market share and get some of the high end speciality software to port to macOS. It already happens that applications have versions for iOS/iPadOS and Windows, but not macOS. SwiftUI and Catalyst will make it possible for those applications to run on macOS. Many would need to have their functionality expanded to equal their Windows version, but the greater the performance gap the more likely that is.

That said, I do not expect that Apple would try to prevent them from releasing a virtualized version of Windows for Apple Silicon systems.

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.

It is a possibility.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I wish MS could just use the M1 on its devices, this seems very embarrassing for their current ARM performances.

Apple does not make chips, they make systems that contain their custom components. As they have made clear many times, these machines exceed expectations because they were designed from the beginning as a complete unit. Hardware was tuned for software and software tuned for hardware.

 

[RobbieTT]

It’s also what people were saying when Apple launched the G5. So many pundits were saying that Windows will have no choice but to move to PowerPC and that all gaming consoles were already going there. It did not happened, X86 adapted and survived.

As an aside, in my sphere of business we ran a fully supported and native version of Windows on PowerPC systems for many years. Intel chips were not an option due to compliance issues. We only started to migrate away when supply of PowerPC chips became a problem (ie the US Government went on a shopping spree).

 

[theotherphil]

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.

Because using their market power to lock other manufacturers out of a market may be seen by some as an anti-trust violation instead of a mutual business decision.

 

[ww1971]

Its a matter of time for Microsoft to make the move, they have taken notice of the M1 of course, I assume within a year an officially supported/licensed version of windows will be runnable on AS, including its 32 bit emulator, is it gonna be great? of course it wont its windows, but, maybe the near-native performance and just the fact ARM as a viable platform will get a boost! I really hope Apple keep improving its GPU's, who knows, maybe in ten years it will be the go-to platform for gaming...

i don’t think Microsoft is that keen to see windows for arm working on m1 like a normal version of windows through bootcamp. If apple won‘t post Mac OS available for other machines other than mac then I cannot see Microsoft trying hard to promote windows for arm in the same manner as windows for intel on other machines other than their own machines with arm chips. I think from now on Mac OS and windows will be seperate again like the old days

 

[ww1971]

I’d pay for Windows on my M1 Macbook Pro. Sometimes it’s neat to have it.

as things stand out, you may be looking at a hefty price tag. you could be paying for a new additional arm based machine with windows for arm preiinstalled.

 

[CarlJ]

This is not that big of a news. Windows lacks something like Rosetta so running the ARM version is much more painful. You can't run x86 apps.

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."

Are we just not bothering to read the article now?

 

[cyberslammer]

Oh thank goodness I was wondering when I could ruin a brand new M1 Mac by putting a sub par piece of trash OS on it.

Sorry you can disagree DerekAmoss I'd rather leave my front door open with the combination to my safe than put the worst OS since Windows Vista on any machine I own.

 

[System Of A Down]

Its a matter of time for Microsoft to make the move, they have taken notice of the M1 of course, I assume within a year an officially supported/licensed version of windows will be runnable on AS, including its 32 bit emulator, is it gonna be great? of course it wont its windows, but, maybe the near-native performance and just the fact ARM as a viable platform will get a boost! I really hope Apple keep improving its GPU's, who knows, maybe in ten years it will be the go-to platform for gaming...

"is it gonna be great? of course it wont its windows"

it's not 2006 anymore, hun. it's 2020. windows has come a long way.

-posted from my iPhone 12 Max Pro

 

[ww1971]

I have yet to see any evidence of microsoft developing a native version (ARM64) of Microsoft office for windows. it maybe ok if there was more native arm64 versions of software for windows. Instead people had to install 32 bit x86 versions of office on windows for arm64. Until Microsoft and other developers can show they can develop arm64 versions of applications to windows I just don’t think it will make any business sense to bring windows arm64 to m1. At the moment the demand is not yet there for it. It’s no good developing a operating system if developers are not going to write native applications for it

and just adding x64 emulation is not good enough. Again as I have said Microsoft and other developers have to show to people they are serious about developing arm64 versions of software for windows arm64 before it can be widely available on mac m1. So until they can do that there is no business case for windows arm64 to be brought to Mac m1 systems

 

[bradman83]

I have yet to see any evidence of microsoft developing a native version (ARM64) of Microsoft office for windows.

Office on Windows Arm is not a purely emulated program. It's a compiled hybrid portable executable. The code is native ARM64 code, but it uses x86 calling conventions so that x86 binary plugins are compatible. While the front-end executable is x86, the libraries that it loads in the backend to do most of the work are native Arm64. So it's not like the Office team has ignored Windows on Arm completely.

 

[bradman83]

i don’t think Microsoft is that keen to see windows for arm working on m1 like a normal version of windows through bootcamp. If apple won‘t post Mac OS available for other machines other than mac then I cannot see Microsoft trying hard to promote windows for arm in the same manner as windows for intel on other machines other than their own machines with arm chips. I think from now on Mac OS and windows will be seperate again like the old days

Microsoft is primarily a software company, they're revenue is primarily generated by 365 subscriptions and cloud/Azure services to enterprise customers, plus consumer 365 sales. macOS not being available to install on non-Apple PCs is a good thing for Microsoft as it means they don't have competition. Whatever gets Windows and other Microsoft services installed on the most devices is in Microsoft's best interest, so it seems inevitable that they will make Windows 10 on ARM available, perhaps by allowing Parallels and VMWare to be considered OEMs.

 

[Ethosik]

I wish MS could just use the M1 on its devices, this seems very embarrassing for their current ARM performances. Kudos to Apple for making a hell of a CPU. A M1 CPU in a surface pro would be incredible and might fulfill what is so far a broken promise by Intel and even Qualcomm. I would honestly switch over to a Mac if they only had a tablet with MacOS on it.

With that said I'm still curious as to how x86 (and eventually x64) run, not only performance but battery life. That's the issue with current solutions such as the surface Pro-X, it does the job but once it starts to emulate x86 battery life is not much better than just using Intel.

The problem with Windows is that is has so much legacy code and needs to run legacy software. I can run games from early 2000 on my latest Windows 10 system with no issues.

Apple is different. They have no problem dropping legacy support. Which is why we can no longer run 32 bit applications while Windows can.

The M1 performs SO WELL because Apple controls both the software and the hardware. It would not perform as well on Windows as people think it would.

 

[apparatchik]

"is it gonna be great? of course it wont its windows"

it's not 2006 anymore, hun. it's 2020. windows has come a long way.

-posted from my iPhone 12 Max Pro

My GF has a Windows laptop & I bootcamp from time to time for gaming, I have the enterprise LTSB edition which Ive been told is the least painful, settings / configuration is still a mess, drivers, recovery points, forced system updates "do not shut down or restart" is all there, macOS has been dropping the ball in terms of bugs lately, still, the difference is night & day hun, I would say Windows is tweaking land, blue screens coming your way...

 

[topmounter]

Clearly Windows ARM on AS-M is less of a technical challenge than it is a standalone licensing question for MS and how that may or may not fit into their Surface strategy.

 

[1958llakin]

For those who want to try this yourself, I wrote up a tutorial at [SUCCESS] Virtualize Windows 10 for ARM on M1 with Alexander Graf's qemu hypervisor patch.

 

[cmaier]

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.

This is the same bad thought process that led to the failed Mac clone experiment.

Apple isn’t dumb enough to give away a major point of differentiation between its products and the rest. Apple’s goal is to convince all potential Surface buyers to buy Macs and to use MacOS. This deal gives apple nothing - why would anyone buy a mac to run windows (already a tiny percentage of Mac buyers) when they can get the same performance by buying a Microsoft machine? What makes you think Apple gives a rats ass about having a license to ARM Windows? (Especially since it’s their customers, not Apple, that needs such a license). You expecting Apple to become an authorized Windows seller or something? And why does Apple care if Intel and Qualcomm “lose?”

This is like bad fanfic that totally ignores what Apple is actually concerned with - selling as much hardware as possible, including taking market share from Microsoft, and locking people into their *own* software ecosystem (because that drives further future hardware sales).

 

[PhSimons]

For those who want to try this yourself, I wrote up a tutorial at [SUCCESS] Virtualize Windows 10 for ARM on M1 with Alexander Graf's qemu hypervisor patch

Was the post suppressed ? Would like to try this myself.

 

[ascender]

Its definitely going to happen, but will be interesting to see how it pans out via the official routes.

I’d also like to know just how many people use Boot Camp or virtualisation to run Windows on their Mac.

 

[ww1971]

Apple is different. They have no problem dropping legacy support. Which is why we can no longer run 32 bit applications while Windows can.

apple is not the only one doing that. Microsoft has also dropped 16 bit application support in windows too and eventually Microsoft may drop 32 bit application support at some point in the future

 

[nsayer]

But still, why would Apple even install Boot Camp Assistant on Apple Silicon Macs? That just seems bonkers.

If they're just using a common image for both platforms, they'd have to go to extra effort to delete the bootcamp binary on ARM.

I mean, it wouldn't have been much extra effort...

 

[nsayer]

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.

Don't forget that they'd have to provide end-user support for retail copies. That's going to cut way, way into that 3-5x net profit. Their license key bologna alone would cost them millions.

That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Parallels and VMware managed to negotiate OEM agreements with Microsoft. Apple doesn't give a crap, but those two companies won't have a viable product if they can't find a path to provide licensed ARM Windows to their users.

 

[alien3dx]

apple is not the only one doing that. Microsoft has also dropped 16 bit application support in windows too and eventually Microsoft may drop 32 bit application support at some point in the future

. microsoft will do in 2030 maybe.Microsoft not strict because they dont force end user to buy latest and fastest.

Adobe force me to buy adobe photoshop element,pixelmator.