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Parallels Confirms MacBook Neo Can Run Windows in a Virtual Machine

People mistake a computer that can BOOT Windows for a computer that can RUN Windows.

The background processes Windows runs nonstop would grind this thing to a halt all by themselves.
 
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boswald said:
Why would you buy a Mac to run Windows? Gaming? Some kind of enterprise requirement? I just don't get it.
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There are a select few items that will run in virtualization but also won’t run in a Mac or a web browser and require Windows.

Having said that I haven’t booted into my Windows VM in years.

The reason is that as much of a pain as Apple keeps trying to make macOS it’s still generally more pleasant to use a Mac than anything else.
 
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ALSO OF NOTE: I don't have the Geekbench link in front of me here, but in a Windows VM, I benched a 2650 single-core score and a 3459 multi-core. That single-core performance is still beating Snapdragons and Core Ultra 5s in the same price class even with virtual machine overhead.
 
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stiligFox said:
I have some software that I can use to diagnose my car that is windows only. It’s very lightweight and would be nifty to have Windows in a VM and not have to carry around a dedicated Windows laptop
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The thing that worries me me that it's sound like it is only Windows11 on Parallels, and not an older version of Windows.

if it were possible (obviously it's not chipsets ), to run Windows 7 on a VM in Parallels on a Neo, I think that'd be fine, but how much memory needs to be allocated to Win11 just to run smoothly enough?

That said, I've never used the ARM WIn11 natively on an ARM-based laptop, so I don't know how resource hungry it is. Intel windows is bloaty.
 
Happy_John said:
The thing that worries me me that it's sound like it is only Windows11 on Parallels, and not an older version of Windows.

if it were possible (obviously it's not chipsets ), to run Windows 7 on a VM in Parallels on a Neo, I think that'd be fine, but how much memory needs to be allocated to Win11 just to run smoothly enough?

That said, I've never used the ARM WIn11 natively on an ARM-based laptop, so I don't know how resource hungry it is. Intel windows is bloaty.
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There aren't older versions of Windows in ARM architecture. It's virtualisation, not emulation.
You could run older windows in 86Box 🙂
 
boswald said:
Why would you buy a Mac to run Windows? Gaming? Some kind of enterprise requirement? I just don't get it.
Click to expand...
Usually some odd apps that were developed for specific businesses and instutions, used by their employees / staff and were never updated because "hey, it works".

For years I ran Win7 on parallels on various Macs my wife used, and just moved over the VM container from machine to machine, just because there were two ancient applications that were developed in-house by a research institute she worked for.

It sounds silly, but it was the easiest solution - she didn't want to have a dedicated Windows box just for those apps.
 
stiligFox said:
I have some software that I can use to diagnose my car that is windows only. It’s very lightweight and would be nifty to have Windows in a VM and not have to carry around a dedicated Windows laptop
Click to expand...

Check out WINE. It uses Rosetta to run Windows apps directly, no Parallels needed. But Rosetta is scheduled for removal from macOS in September. Not sure why. It's a shame.
 
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jlc1978 said:
I've used Parallels/Fusion over the years (as well as older products for pre-Intel Macs and MS-Dos on an Apple][ via a PCTransporter) as an occasional tool for times when I needed Windows, never as a substitute for a Windows machine for frequent use.

In my case, I use it to test compatibility between files created on the Mac in Office to ensure no weird changes occur before sending them to clients; as well as run the desktop version of PowerBI. I also test websites in EDGe and Chrome on Windows for to see if tehy work properly. It's useful, to me, to have a VM for those occasional uses.

I don't play games so any performance limitations with winARM have not impacted my use case. The pre-Intel products were more of a "wow, it can do that" vs "I don't need a Windows box." The PCTransporter let me run a VT100 emulator to connect to work at a whopping 2400baud. Fun times.
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That seems to be the general reasoning from what I gather (one or 2 oddball apps). I can imagine having an old Mac around with Boot Camp for that purpose, but these days I suppose VM's are more useful. I keep a Linux machine around for the occasional game with friends.
 
ZiBart said:
Excel. Power users still don't get all the advanced features that Windows version has. But the Neo is not it for that.
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Yep, Excel on macOS (and the web) doesn't match the Windows version. I use VB scripts a lot, and have to stick to using actual Windows.

I have a Windows computer to do work, but that's the first thing I thought of.
 
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coolfactor said:
Check out WINE. It uses Rosetta to run Windows apps directly, no Parallels needed. But Rosetta is scheduled for removal from macOS in September. Not sure why. It's a shame.
Click to expand...

I was going to write the same thing about Wine. Or Crossover can be used for some games.

If I remember correctly, Rosetta will be removed on macos 28, not this years macos 27. macos27 will be apple silicon only and rosetta dies next year.
 
Good to know. But the number of people that will buy MacBook Neo with the intent of - even occasionally - running Windows, has to be a handful.
 
not that i can accurately compare as ive got an M4 pro with 14/20 cores and 24GB RAM, but I run ARM windows 11 via UTM with only 4GB RAM for the VM and it runs very happily.

i would take a guess and say if you need to run windows on the neo and the virtualisation app is all you have running, it will run fine.

this obviously depends on what your running inside the VM, but for basic usage, i would guess there wont be much of an issue.
 
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coolfactor said:
The A18 chip was built for a phone. That it can power a Mac is incredible. The A- and M-series chips may be cousins, but they are not identical.
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The Apple Sillicon developer units already had an A series chip in them. That was almost six years ago. Hence the reason this isn’t really surprising to me.
 
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WarmWinterHat said:
Yep, Excel on macOS (and the web) doesn't match the Windows version. I use VB scripts a lot, and have to stick to using actual Windows.

I have a Windows computer to do work, but that's the first thing I thought of.
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Same here.

Also, i just remembered, i have and can update the firmware of my Dell and HP monitors with VM Windows as they dont have MacOS option to do that. Another usage case although most likely a minor one.
 
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stiligFox said:
I have some software that I can use to diagnose my car that is windows only. It’s very lightweight and would be nifty to have Windows in a VM and not have to carry around a dedicated Windows laptop
Click to expand...
Would that even work with ARM Windows? So many hardware don’t have ARM Windows drivers.
 
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