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Microsoft Says ARM Windows Virtualization on Apple Silicon Macs 'Not a Supported Scenario'

asiga said:
Tell that to ISVs in the fields of AEC and almost in every engineering branch: AutoCAD and ArchiCAD are the only exceptions that run in MacOS. That prevents moving to Windows if you work in such industries. Until now, I could do that in Macs by running Windows inside VMs. Now, it won't be possible anymore. And no, ISVs are not going to start porting to Mac. That part of the Mac sales will be lost (and I can see it already in my Architecture School: 5 years ago, every student had a Mac, while nowadays, almost no student has a Mac anymore).
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Also, you can purchase a gamer notebook capable of decently run Lumion 11 for 1/3 of the cost of the “equivalent” Mac (if any).
 
TheMacDaddy1 said:
Unless you use some odd ball Windows only program it has been easy to do for a while now. I am talking some industry specific app that is only on Windows, like software that controls a CAT scan machine or something like that. So much is web based, ported to Mac (if not M1 already) or there is a great alternative.

I manage an IT infrastructure team. We have 90% Windows servers on-prem (all on VMware) and some serious assists in Azure and Office 365. My team and I all do this from Mac’s and have for a while.
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All that odd ball Windows software used in electrical engineering design, testing and simulation that Apple engineers have to use themselves to design Macs and iPhones.
 
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Manzanito said:
Why would they be embarrassed? Microsoft does not design chips.
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Maybe because Windows 11 performs better on Arm chips vs their biggest partner Intel x86-64?!

has Microsoft fully and officially announced windows 11 will ship with full arm support?!

EDIT: seems it’s official Microsoft Windows 11 does get Arm cpu support https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.tec...arm-and-why-it-will-bring-more-big-name-apps/

Just not on Apple Silicon.
seems more like a partner and ecosystem lock in and protection: Intel, AMD, yet more so to protect Windows against Linux being more supported over time by Dell, HP etc.
 
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Sasparilla said:
Almost certainly Intel paid Microsoft alot of money to sit on its ARM solution. Intel has a long history of paying companies (hardware and software) to do things it wants.

Odd for Microsoft to lock out those potential sales - they must think they'll come out ahead by denying themselves those. We certainly know which side of the equation Intel would want Microsoft to be on here.
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Microsoft is now in hardware sales, and they see where computer architecture is going - ARM.

Microsoft wants to be selling their own computing devices running on the ARM architecture along with selling Windows. So, by allowing the virtualization of Windows for ARM on Macs, they would jeopardize the sales of their own future hardware.

Apple doesn’t allow the virtualization of macOS on non-Mac platforms. So if Microsoft did the same, it would be equitable. But Microsoft can’t single out Apple; instead, they would have to ban Windows for ARM virtualization on any non-Microsoft platform.
 
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I am not missing Windows these days but I sure would have loved to see how it performs native on Apple Silicon.

Since I stopped gaming in Windows there is no need for it anymore, everything else works on OSX.
 
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mikethemartian said:
All that odd ball Windows software used in electrical engineering design, testing and simulation that Apple engineers have to use themselves to design Macs and iPhones.
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Who says they haven’t developed their own internal software though. It isn’t like they don’t have the talent.
 
Right and Apple doesn't allow MacOS in vmware yet that's how I got an m1 mac mini revived. Instead of going to an :apple: store, rather used an average Asus windows laptop with vmware and big sur. Worked perfectly.

You don't need a MS permission to run Windows 11 in Parallels. :cool:
 
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Microsoft wants Mac users to use Windows 365, which isn't a bad idea, but they need to come up with a better pricing model.
 
The term is ARM, not Arm. It’s an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines, not be confused with the company Arm Ltd.
 
Just got a powerful desktop for Windows. Hooked up to same display as Mac.

Hoping to get M-something Mac when they release later this year.
 
emulator said:
Right and Apple doesn't allow MacOS in vmware yet that's how I got an m1 mac mini revived. Instead of going to an :apple: store, rather used an average Asus windows laptop with vmware and big sur. Worked perfectly.

You don't need a MS permission to run Windows 11 in Parallels. :cool:
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Microsoft could technically sue Parallel for allowing Windows virtualization due to copyright infringement. Similarly that Apple can sue you to run MacOS inside none Apple branded hardware, like Hackintosh.

As far as I know, there is no retail copies of Windows on ARM, so if you are going to run Windows ARM on Apple Silicon Mac, you are automatically broken the license agreement.

It is to be seen if you can run x86 version of Windows within Parallels.
 
Obviously, they can’t support what they don’t know yet. And not supported does not mean that it doesn’t work.
I believe Windows under I two virtualization was not supported either when it started, so nothing to worry about.
 
emulator said:
Right and Apple doesn't allow MacOS in vmware yet that's how I got an m1 mac mini revived. Instead of going to an :apple: store, rather used an average Asus windows laptop with vmware and big sur. Worked perfectly.

You don't need a MS permission to run Windows 11 in Parallels. :cool:
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Yet....

I think VMWare knows more and is why they are not "focusing" on VM Windows, but instead Linux.

We can only know when October 5th comes around when the official release of Windows 11 comes.

I suspect that any VM's of Windows 11 ARM after October 5th will be "illegal" like Apple's OS is on anything not on Apple hardware. Apple did it and it looks like Microsoft is moving to that as well. They can and will do it.

They want to promote their web cloud Windows instead as an option for Mac users (my guess) since they have enough data that most Mac users who need any Microsoft products are Office users only due to Business related only, so no need.

For mac gamers...we are out in the cold on a rainy day...(their data probably reveals that this is a small segment).

We will have to buy a PC if we want Windows 11 going forward probably. If not, we stay with intel Macs with bootcamp and Windows 10. This is what I see on the horizon...could be wrong of course...but this is what it looks like is coming.
 
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Why do I have this feeling that Windows for ARM will be a subscription model? :rolleyes:
 
Everyone is blaming MS, but Apple itself does nothing to support booting from another OS on M1. Linux devs currently need spend so much time on system reverse engineering, and Microsoft should do same thing without any information for writing hardware drivers, seriously?
 
macOS Lynx said:
This article and the source article are both garbage.

The original website was encountering an error message in Parallels with the latest Dev build of W11A and so they reached out to Microsoft, who said they don’t support that scenario.

Nowhere did Microsoft ever say they have no plans to support Windows on ARM on M1/Parallels/VMware, or that Windows on ARM will never support M1, just that it’s not currently a supported scenario.
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Is there a realistic worst case scenario where even windows 10 is not available via parallels for M1 macs? I absolutely need some features of the windows version of microsoft excel debating whether to get an m1 mac
 
Here is the deal why there are Mac gamers on the Mac, 1. Apple makes the very best hardware that lasts for years, why would you want to buy a crappy build PC to game on. 2. On my MacBook Pro 16 I can run a EGPU box and have a Nvidia 3080TI card for the best gaming, M1 not doing EGPU boxes as we speak. 3. I can get 32gb or even 64gb for ram memory not on the M1 right now. 4. I can have a great setup where I can have a MacBook Pro with a 32in 240hz gaming monitor connected to My Thunderbolt 3 port for DisplayPort video when on Mac OS X, or on the Video card DisplayPort for video and have a Xbox Series X on the HDMI port all on the same monitor, I can just flip a switch to jump between inputs.
5. Windows still has some business software that is only available on x86.

In the future I will most liking buy a low end Mac mini for desktop, but I am already using a Chromebook that has Linux under the hood and is much lower price and is very good hardware and very fast with an Intel i5 11gen.
 
TheMacDaddy1 said:
In 2021 if you need Windows but prefer Mac’s get a cheap Windows computer to do what you must on Windows.

I have not used Windows on a Mac in at least 5 years. I do occasionally RDP into Windows computers with JumpDestop but I do not need to run Windows on my Mac with BootCamp or in a VM.
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I only use Windows to provide Tech Support through Quick Assist and sometimes to test specific Windows software or firmware utilities. And I have it running in a VM on an older iMac I can access from anywhere in the world. It gets backed daily, and if it crashes I can recover it in no time.

I would never trade macOS with Windows over a simplicity.
 
cbs31572 said:
Microsoft wants Mac users to use Windows 365, which isn't a bad idea, but they need to come up with a better pricing model.
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It is a bad idea if you have software which (for unfathomable reasons) requires use of a USB device.

(As well as crazy level pricing.)
 
iBluetooth said:
Why would MSFT want to limit their operating system to not running on M1? I think Parallels did a good solution, but I am afraid to buy that now as it may not last.
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They don't. Look at what they said: It's not "supported".

That means they won't do any extra work to make it run, or at least won't promise extra work. There's no reason to assume they will do the work to "limit" anything. And if Parallels does the work, it's probably fine by Microsoft.

Apple Silicon is just (currently) way too small a market for them to care about.
 
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