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Looking at a M1 MacBook Air
- Thread starter waloshin
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Based on those specific needs, you are pretty much say good bye to all apple silicon Mac or not using it with those specific devices until they are upgraded. Parallel first is not legally allowed to run ARM based windows. Second the driver support for your device does not exist and may never will.
An intel mac is your only option for Mac atm.
An intel mac is your only option for Mac atm.
If you run the ARM version of Windows 10 (in Parallels) you can run Win32 software using its built-in x86 emulation.
I don't think whatever was blocking that before is still true. I had an M1 MBP for a couple of weeks and it was quite easy to install Windows 10 ARM in Parallels.
Nothing was blocking it, but it's still not licensable. Microsoft doesn't sell licenses for Windows on Arm, other than to OEM's for hardware.
The preview build works, but that might not hold true when the actual licensed ARM version comes out?
I know.
I'm asking about what happens after Windows on ARM exits the preview builds. Does this mean there will be no way to run Windows on ARM in Parallels after the preview build is no longer supported?
Software should be updated just fine. Dunno if activation is hard required for ARM version though. We know x86 version Windows 10 can run unactivated. ARM version might be different.
Only Microsoft knows that answer. Maybe. I know there's no official announcement.
x86 SW is NOT going to run on a M1, period ... WinARM is out but NOT sold standalone by MS, at this point in time. If your specific SW/driver would work on WinARM, no-one knows ...
You'd be better off with a Intel Mac
I highly doubt it. Driver is more low level than regular applications. There is no universal 32 bit and 64 bit drivers despite they are both under x86 architecture. It can only be 32 bit or 64 bit. ARM is something completely different, so I doubt the driver you have at hand will support ARM version of windows.
Internaut
macrumors 65816
I run an Intel based soft phone, Phoner Lite, on a Windows Insider Preview ARM build of Windows 10, hosted on Parallels on an M1 MacBook Air. All runs very smoothly. The Insider Previews do eventually expire, meaning you have to set up another Windows VM. No idea how sustainable that is, or if Microsoft will ever offer a suitable licence for sale.
Old 32 bit drivers? You would have to try before you buy. For the OP’s use case, a cheap Windows PC, running Windows 10, might be the least risk option (and that assumes the drivers are known to run on Windows 10 at all).