Parallels and Windows 10 for ARM

[southerndoc]

Anyone have any experience with Parallels 16.5 and Windows 10 for ARM? How good does it work with an MBA/MM M1 with 16GB of memory? Does the Windows 10 for ARM run all Windows 10 programs or is it limited to only ARM-specific apps?

 

[4743913]

Thank you - I did this one.
In my question I was referring to getting the full license (that you have) vs the insider/evaluation.

I entered my Windows 10 activation key when I installed Windows 10 ARM and it was fully embraced by Microsoft. As shown in the photos, they know exactly how I am using it and approved the activation of a digital license. They gave me the option to upgrade to 11 and I took it. Everything works beautifully. I am having a lot of fun playing Assassins Creed: Black Flag on my base M1 Air.

Do not let Internet Anons tell you what you can or cannot do. Explore.

 

[haralds]

I don't know, I have the impression that bootcamp fans are a loud minority. Most people have a Windows laptop or desktop for that and/or prefer the convenience of using Mac and Windows at the same time. Personally I have bought a $8 Windows pro key for my Parallel VM in order to stop that non activated message from appearing all the time... And it works with Windows on Arm, my guess is that regular keys will work with Windows 11 on Arm too...

I have had BootCamp on all my Intel Macs since the beginning. I occasionally use them for work accessory debugging and very occasionally, games. But I mostly boot them via VMware or Parallels. For regular use, VMs with virtual disks are more flexible. With Parallels' performance on M1, I will not really miss BootCamp.
Simpler is better.

 

[satcomer]

Forget Windows 10 on M1 Macs AND GO WITH NATIVE ARM WINDOWS 11!

 

[Internaut]

It runs on an 8GB machine but doesn’t leave room for much else . Still, useful in an emergency when the MacBook Air is all I have to hand. Even managed to get it working with corporate VPN (AnyConnect from the Microsoft store).

 

[4743913]

Letting anything TheVerge writes drive you crazy means you haven't read much of their drivel. Read the article, they didn't even try to follow up with Microsoft. I want Microsoft to say that they are going to allow purchase of Windows on Arm licenses but so far I've seen nothing from them.

They don't have to support what they don't sell.. I am happy with the current arrangement. I need nothing more from them.

 

[jlc1978]

That's all I want too. For now I'm not even going to pay for the upgrade of parallels.

Same here. I cancelled my sub as I can use Fusion fine on my Intel Mac and live without Parallels on my M1 Air. If and when a legal path to WinARM exists I'll reconsider.

 

[Internaut]

Great point. I constantly see criticism of Windows on Arm virtualized on Mac.
Let me quote a comment from a Windows site I am subscribed to:
"This means you are now running Windows ARM version as as VM on a M1 Mac....so performance hit right there.....then in Windows on ARM you are emulating the Win32/64 bit app. I can't imagine the performance would anywhere close to even OK. What a train wreck."

This person doesn't realize that for a lot of software this works extremely well. I have several Win32 apps running on my Parallels VM and they run great. They don't require much power, just like MS Office can run on anything fine as long as it has an SSD. So Parallels on M1 shouldn't work in theory but it works great in practice for a lot of software.
Because again, if you need demanding software (gaming, video editing etc.) you are either running it on the Mac itself or if not available you don't get a M1 Mac to run it....

For the Intel software I've run so far, inside an ARM Windows VM on my lowly, base Air, I get the impression that Microsoft's Intel emulation is on par with Rosetta. For ARM Windows running on bare metal (i.e. a Surface Pro X), it's the hardware that is letting Microsoft's software down at the moment!

 

[Digitalguy]

I have the same experience - I just need to run Office/Visio occasionally to check compatiblity and run PowerBI as well. A seperate machine would sit idle most of the time and the there is the issue of file transfers and ensuring you are working on the latest version.



Yea, if you hav a specific use case get a machine designed for it.



I think part of the issue is MS is not a hardware company; historically they've built software and let the hardware company sort out performance issues.



The phone customer base is no doubt the biggest and so I suspect any development of chips for other devices will take a back seat until the ARM market gets big enough. It's a bit of the chicken and the egg since a small market means less interest for MS to push it which means less demand to develop chips for it.

Microsoft has never developed an ARM chip for Surface. For those who don't know SQ1 and SQ2 are just rebranded 8CX gen 1 and 2 with some AI from MS. So Qualcomm chips.
Qualcomm never prioritized laptops and sold their flagship phone chips for laptops at Intel i7 prices.
Until last year....
M1 was a big wake up moment for Qualcomm, that's why they bought Nuvia in January for 1.4 billions and said they will make a chip competitive with Apple Silicon next year....
My guess is that it will barely compete with M1 at a time where M1X, M2 and M2X are out, but it might still be a game changer for Windows on Arm...

 

[4743913]

Gents - my goal is to remove the desktop watermark and disable the unwanted updates - yet still keep the working Win10/11 image. Can you confirm this can be done? If so - this would be closest to real Win10 experience I had and I would opt for that.

Yes, entering an activation key will remove the limitations of having a non-activated build of Windows. You'll be able to change all of the settings, appearance-wise, that are locked down by not having an activated copy of Windows. The Desktop Watermark will remain, from my experience anyway, until the version of Windows you're on is the official release build at that time. Mine still showed the build information in the bottom right (but not the "not activated" wording) after opting out of the Insider Preview builds until a new official release and then I just had my regular desktop wallpaper, no build information at all listed.

**Note that this experience was from Win10 on ARM. Win11 is still in Beta and can't be opted out yet. I'm curious if we'd have the same process once it's official.

@gank41 is correct. You will get a fully activated Windows 10. However, in my case, it removed the desktop watermark when I upgraded to 11 and if I go to settings, it doesn't show me as an Insider anymore. The option to join the Insider Program is there. I am using a local account also not my microsoft id so that may be the difference. I am receiving regular updates to Windows 11.

We cannot pretend to know what Microsoft is doing. A lot of their employees probably do not know. All we can do is give them money, get a license, and activate it.

 

[4743913]

In any case, I've said my piece, so yeah, I wont post again in this thread. So, use at your own risk, peace out.

you keep saying "peace out" but something compels you to return and continue to spam threads with your misinformation. please put the mouse down.

 

[jlc1978]

What do you guys think my best solution is? Theres a game called final fantasy IX on steam, its for windows. so its going to need crossover or parallels I assume. Theres a mod, called moguri mod, it installs over the steam files. I havnt played it, but I want too play it.

Crossover isn't an emulator or VM, it is a compatibility layer that translates Windows to run on MacOS. My experience with Crossover on Intel macs is it is hit or miss; stuff would not always run perfectly. IIRC tey have a free trial. In addition WINE, which shares a lot of code with Crossover, is also worth a try.

Thats the only reason im considering parallels. I just dont want to pay 99 bucks for it, and find out parallels 18 is out a week later with double the functionality. Little hesitant about windows 11, real license working on it. If I read right, the current solution is a developer beta/build of w11. which means, it will stop receiving updates once its out of beta. that is a scary thought.

Parallels is on a 12 month or so release cycle so I doubt 18 is near. As for W11, who knows what will happen once it is out of beta.

 

[FreedomPenguin]

definitely going to hold off buying license til people officially get it licensed. 100 dollars would suck to lose and not be able to run windows.

 

[jdb8167]

There's gotta be "a plan" for these rather large companies, Parallels & VMWare, to continue on in some way that makes everyone the most money. When Apple demo'ed virtualization of Linux and there was no mention of Microsoft, people worried.. Then Apple said Windows on M1 is up to Microsoft and not Apple, people worried.. But then there's been plenty of Joe Shmoe's like myself who can get WoA running some rather old apps and get some great performance. I was more surprised that Win11 was so stable at initial release than anything. But again, that's just me. And then there's been some much smarter people than I getting Linux to run natively on their M1 Mac. Would people really be THAT surprised if they later found out Microsoft has been testing WoA on M1 Macs the entire time secretly in their labs? I'm still holding out hope that at some point in the not so distant future (next Sunday AD.. jk), There will at least be a less official way to run WoA in Parallels and continue to get updates. We'll have to wait until after Win11 is released on Oct 5, and I still believe that Parallels & VMWare are interpreting Microsoft's Licensing jargon differently. VMWare being so adamant about 'it not working legally' and then just not making it happen. While Parallels is all 'Look how great it runs! No problems!', and still charges for a subscription and makes zero mention of their app not working with Windows at all.. I mean, if it ends up NOT working "Legally" with Windows in the Future, like when you can't buy Windows 10 Licenses anymore and IF Microsoft firmly enforces their hardware requirements to restrict installs in a VM on a Mac, after however long of them still continuing to charge for a subscription to do that very same thing? I don't see Parallels staying in Business much longer considering the plan is to move all in on M1 and ditch Intel. Eventually, VMWare will be in the same boat, although their Server business would keep them going (like it probably is now).

What's great about VM's is that you can make backups of them and just return to them later. I just went back to my "old" VM of Win10 ARM from before I upgraded to Win11 and besides the UI Differences, all of my apps are still continuing to run as expected. I actually prefer the Start Menu UI in Win10 more than Win11 anyway. It's a shame Apple still includes the BootCamp app on their M1 Macs. What a tease LoL

Parallels has always seemed to be a little bit shady to me compared to VMWare. But since Corel acquired them, I assumed that they would become more corporate. Now I’m not so sure. If Microsoft denies allowing Apple silicon Macs a legal license to Windows on Arm, Parallels is going to have a legal mess on their hands.

 

[Digitalguy]

OK I think I may have got it.

I changed my Insider Preview channel, visited the link again and now I'm downloading a Windows 10 preview.

Problem was that on the Windows 11 that I downloaded and installed, going inside Settings -> Windows Update -> Windows Insider Program showed only an error about how my hardware isn't supported. There's no way to toggle a change in channel.

Went to this link to learn how to switch channels since I couldn't do it within the VM.

-------

EDIT:
Installing the Windows 10 .vhdx gives me... Windows 11 Pro. Installed twice.

Here's a screenshot of the fresh install along with a Finder window showing the .vhdx file I downloaded and used.

View attachment 1826725

here is the name of the file I used if it can help Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX
Downloaded July 28th...

 

[hunkster]

here is the name of the file I used if it can help Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX
Downloaded July 28th...

Thank you! Based on the filename you provided, I was able to download the correct .vhdx and have Windows 10 ARM installed.

 

[gank41]

For anyone on an M1 Mac worried about their Windows 10 Insider Preview expiring, or not being able to upgrade to Windows 11, I found this very helpful. I’ve been able to continue running Windows Updates after following the steps here:

How to Bypass Windows 11's TPM, CPU and RAM Requirements

Use simple utilities to install Windows 11 on any PC.

www.tomshardware.com

Not sure if the .cmd file would need to be run again or if it’ll stick. But it’s working for me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Mike Boreham]

Where are you going to get an ARM version of Windows that is not an insider preview?

Not sure if you mean 10 or 11 but many of us have got Windows 11 Release installed in Parallels, and getting all the regular Windows 11 ARM updates. Not Insider, no expiry, activated with Windows license on MS account. I got mine from uupdump.net as detailed here: How to install Windows 11 (retail version)

 

[Mike Boreham]

The directions in your link are really good instructions. I'm going to ask you or somebody else to go a little further.
The only windows machine I have access to is a Windows 10 OS installed on a Parallels VM. To keep the VM small, I've restricted it largely to programs, with the data stored on the Mac side, which in my case is designated y://. I think, but am not sure, that that is causing me problems when I try to follow the instructions for a windows machine.
When I run the command file, I get error messages: "CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories. We couldn't find files\aria2c.exe in current directory." Then the command window says it needs to shut down.
I thought maybe the command was looking for aria in the current directory, kind of like with ytdl, so I put it there. That didn't help.
I have also considered whether PowerShell might be able to solve the problem, but I can't figure out how to navigate to the shared directory or drag the command file into PowerShell
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

I suggest you ask on the Parallels forum. I did it before those instructions were posted and made several wrong turns and had to start over. It was all completely new to me.

Parallels 17.1.1 has been released today Headline feature is easier to install release Windows 11. Can now get Windows 11 Release ISO from Microsoft. Supersedes uupdumpnet etc see here:

https://forum.parallels.com/threads...-read-post-48-first.355463/page-3#post-896937

 

[shootertwist14]

Been using parallels 17 and its very smooth on my baseline macbook air m1

 

[gank41]

Just this morning I installed a Windows 11 VM from the Parallels Installation Assistant, and was able to Activate it by signing in with my Microsoft Account. It's the regular retail version of Windows 11, too, not the Insider Preview version.

 

[skaro]

Windows 10 (and 11) run really well in my experience, but your mileage will vary depending on what you're trying to do. Office apps run nicely and if you grab the latest Office Insider builds they are now optimised for Windows on ARM. If you try to run something more intensive like Visual Studio it will work but it's really slow.

I'm on a MacBook Pro and I don't get the heat and throttling issues that the poster above gets.

 

[4743913]

The biggest problem is licensing, you can't right now

As pointed out in other threads, you are wrong.

 

[bobcomer]

Go out and try to buy a retail Windows on Arm copy of Windows -- you can't, period, end of statement. That's because it can only be purchased as part of hardware on their approved hardware list. Windows x86/x64 <> Windows on Arm.

Use at your own financial risk.

 

[jdb8167]

These are two totally orthogonal questions - ff you can buy a retail copy, or if you can get a license. The later part is possible - as Microsoft does not distinguish between different architectures as far as licensing is concerned.

If you can get a license why can you only use WoA via the insiders program? When you can get a legal copy of Windows 10 or 11 for Arm that doesn’t require beta updates, then I will agree that you have a valid license.