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N9JIG

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 25, 2019
215
107
SW USA
So when I bought my wife a new M1 iMac (she loved the blue one...) I inherited her M1 Mac Mini. I have been running Parallels forever on my Macs, currently a 2018 Mini. The M1 only has 8GB of RAM (My Intel has 32) but so far that has not been a problem.

I installed the latest version of Parallels (17.1.0) and downloaded the Insider Edition of Windows 10 for ARM. After installation it immediately wanted to upgrade to Windows 11. I let it do so and when it was complete I tried my apps. Everything seemed to work just fine.

I am not a hardcore kind of guy, I don't use Final Cut often, I am not a gamer etc. Most of my work stuff is browser-based so it is platform agnostic. I use a couple Windows applications for my WFH job, mostly for the company phone system. I also program radios, all that software is Windows based. I also host a couple live YouTube shows each week, that is all browser based so I can do that from almost any device with a camera and mic.

Both the phone software and my main radio programming software seem to work just fine in Windows 11 Pro. I have read about some driver issues related to ARM for certain instances but they do not apply to me for my purposes. My stuff only needs to read and write to SD cards and run the application. The phone system has to access the Internet and play back messages, no problems there.

When I tried this before with Windows 10 I had some problems getting DotNet going but it appears that this installation already had that. Both the phone and radio software use DotNet Framework 2.0 or 3.5 (apparently 3.5 has 2.0 included) so either Windows 11 already had that installed or it was inherited from my Windows 10 installation.

I am going to run this way for a week or two and see if it fits my needs. If so I might seriously consider replacing my Intel Mini with whatever Mini comes out next. The Intel 2018 is fine, I have no problems with it but it is 3 years old now and that is usually the time I upgrade. I don't mind extending it for a year if needed however so I can afford to wait a bit to see what comes up.

In the meantime I will run the 2020 M1 Mini and see how it handles my work but keep the 2018 going just in case.
 
When I tried this before with Windows 10 I had some problems getting DotNet going but it appears that this installation already had that. Both the phone and radio software use DotNet Framework 2.0 or 3.5 (apparently 3.5 has 2.0 included) so either Windows 11 already had that installed or it was inherited from my Windows 10 installation.
That's a common problem in Windows land, I don't know why they just don't install it in the first place during the OS install. And probably yes, your Windows 11 inherited it from Windows 10 if you did an upgrade to 11. A clean Windows 11 install needs it added. It's usually the first thing I do when setting up a new PC for someone...
 
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