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There's No Windows for Arm Macs Yet Because Microsoft Has Secret Exclusivity Deal With Qualcomm

I flip back and forth between Windows and Mac every 5 or 6 years. This July I moved from the prairies to the East Coast amd my Dell something or other died first day in my new house. So I went out and bought MBA/MBP and an iMac.

Found that Intel Windows would not install. Bummer. Found out about Windows 10 arm64 and although a struggle, managed to get it installed but was never able to activate it.A couple of updates and my Windows 10 arm64 vm borked. Tried installing my backup copy of W10 arm64 and uh uh - stopped being able to install

Went to install the version of w11 arm64 referenced on the Parallels homepage; worked, was able to activate it using a script from github and have applied updates.

Have no idea why I had to install Windows b/c I took medical retirement over 4 years ago. Don’t need compatibility with workplace software - but it is nice to ne able to play some games inside of virtualized W11 that just would not work under Crossover.

Tom
 
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dguisinger said:
.... why would Microsoft hitch their wagon to a company that hasn't delivered great performance. I wonder how old this agreement is, I wonder if it predates Windows RT
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I don't think it's anything that nefarious. Who else would they partner with? AMD was almost bankrupt when the agreement started, and were focused on x86 anyways. Intel is obviously out. NVIDIA does do ARM SoCS, but I think they avoid cheap semi-custom stuff like SQ1 and SQ2. MediaTek has become more competitive as of late but that's a very recent development. Apple? Lololololol. Who does that leave? Qualcomm. And if they are going to invest resources in a new market that won't guarantee any returns, Microsoft had better give them something in return. Even with the exclusivity deal, Qualcomm didn't invest much. To be fair, neither did Microsoft.

Plus, more vendors = more graphics drivers to support. On a very niche platform with already limited compatibility, it makes sense to prioritize simplicity. That's just my $.02, though. I could be wrong.
 
Bandaman said:
Seriously why not? VMs run like crap being emulated vs being native. The state of Parallels and ARM Windows is awful.

This will encourage me to purchase Qualcomm Android phones even less.
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uh ok. Not my expereince but each person has a different one. My VM with Win 11 ARM runs faster than my MacBook Pro 16.
 
Vjosullivan said:
Really? How many non-Apple platforms is macOS available on?
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None. That’s the point though. If your product is made for adoption by multiple OEMs but you only make it available to a select few that becomes a problem if you are in a dominant market position. No one would complain if Microsoft is only making it available for its own devices.
 
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nsayer said:
I have ARM Windows 11 running under Parallels and it works great. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It is absolutely diametrically opposed to my own experience.
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You must not run a lot of software. I use it for a large variety of things. I've had to make a common practice of doing an OS screenshot before installing any software to prevent unbootable blue screens of the VM. Try installing partitioning apps like mini tool or aomei partition assistant or macrium reflect and then reboot. It makes the VM unbootable. If Microsoft would stop being buttheads, ARM Windows would receive more support and these issues wouldn't be happening. Outside of these stupid issues, it runs relatively well, but it will never run as well as native. What's not logical is NOT wanting a native version of ARM Windows. Ridiculous mentality like that is why we can't have nice things.
 
I upgraded my parallels version 15 license for a yearly version 17 pro-license of parallels, kind of useless now, just as windows 11 (no)ARM. I will make sure auto-renewal is OFF. KALI-linux can run somewhere else and i will figure out how to VM Monterey on my M1 MAX pro.

On the bright site: There is now ZERO WINDOWS.EXE running in my house
 
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Bandaman said:
You must not run a lot of software. I use it for a large variety of things. I've had to make a common practice of doing an OS screenshot before installing any software to prevent unbootable blue screens of the VM. Try installing partitioning apps like mini tool or aomei partition assistant or macrium reflect and then reboot. It makes the VM unbootable. If Microsoft would stop being buttheads, ARM Windows would receive more support and these issues wouldn't be happening. Outside of these stupid issues, it runs relatively well, but it will never run as well as native. What's not logical is NOT wanting a native version of ARM Windows. Ridiculous mentality like that is why we can't have nice things.
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"A lot" isn't a useful metric. I run mostly Microchip Studio, which is a bunch of crap layered on top of VS, all of which is running under x86 emulation. I've also run a bunch of other embedded system development tools that talk to USB peripherals for programming and the like. I've also occasionally run Office apps, to wit Word and Excel.

I have had zero problems. I have never claimed that no one has had problems. I just said that it was completely orthogonal to my experience.
 
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desslr said:
I really struggle to understand why on earth anyone would put Windows on a MacBook.
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I don't know why anyone would do the equivalent of Boot Camp. I don't know why Boot Camp ever existed apart from Apple being able to check a box. But I can't conceive of why someone would not understand why it's valuable to run Windows or Linux or what not in a VM.
 
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All the more reason to dump windows altogether. I did in 2012, couldn’t be happier. Every so often I get asked to rebuild someone’s windows machine. Whew glad I left

But then for those with nothing better to do than game, I guess it is not feasible
 
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Macaholic868 said:
Everybody running modern line of business software. They don’t tend to write Mac versions of their software.
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The Mac enthusiasts in this website/forum tend to forget that in the business world, Windows software is the dominant one while Mac isn't.
Apple has created a niche for the creative (aka artistic) types and for the educational world (rope in younger people and keep them in the Mac ecosystem from a young age to old age).

Many engineering programs and business programs are only made for Windows.
If the software companies would, but don’t, create Mac versions of them, Apple would have lots of converts.
There appears to be lots of Windows users in the forums so it's foolhardy to dismiss them as many also like using Apple products.
 
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MrMojo1 said:
The Mac enthusiasts in this website/forum tend to forget that in the business world, Windows software is the dominant one while Mac isn't.
Apple has created a niche for the creative (aka artistic) types and for the educational world (rope in younger people and keep them in the Mac ecosystem from a young age to old age).

Many engineering programs and business programs are only made for Windows.
If the software companies can create Mac versions of them, Apple would have lots of converts.
There appears to be lots of Windows users in the forums so it's foolhardy to dismiss them as many also like using Apple products.
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Then why are you running a Mac? I use mine for business and run a business with opensource and development. Use what it needed. If you have only Windows-based work software you need to run it on that platform, on company hardware, or a system sanctioned by them. I don't understand the personal laptop running a non-company OS to run their software.
 
Instead of releasing the full-blown Windows for ARM, Microsoft should just release the lightweight version ideal for VM use. I certain don't need the full Windows experience to run a handful of Windows apps, which I suspect is true for most Windows VM on a Mac users.
 
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Doesn’t that literally define anti-competitive behavior? Next Qualcomm will be charging an ip fee to anyone who licenses its chips. Oh wait - I guess they’ll up what they charge
 
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nsayer said:
I don't know why anyone would do the equivalent of Boot Camp. I don't know why Boot Camp ever existed apart from Apple being able to check a box. But I can't conceive of why someone would not understand why it's valuable to run Windows or Linux or what not in a VM.
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It was the value proposition of buying an Intel Mac. It also does Windows was something to sell it as a just in case fallback.
 
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macfanboy said:
How many ”exclusive agreements” did Apple sign so that macOS can only be available on Apple hardware? That’s what antitrust is about. Not vertical integration
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As a reminder Apple in the 90's intentionally re-versioned what was to be Mac OS 7.7 to Mac OS 8 specifically so that the Mac clone makers would not be allowed to get the update as their licensing was good for all System/Mac OS 7.x releases. Mac OS 8 at the time was intended to be what became Mac OS X/OS X/macOS. This was done specifically to eliminate non-Apple Mac OS hardware.

And when Apple launched the iPhone they had a four year exclusivity agreement with Cingular/AT&T.
 
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