Hi All,
Are you guys able to run Windows applications on the new Mac laptops? Can you run them individually and/or run a Windows 10/11 VM?
If so, has it been pretty stable?
Thanks,
Craig
Hi All,
Are you guys able to run Windows applications on the new Mac laptops? Can you run them individually and/or run a Windows 10/11 VM?
If so, has it been pretty stable?
Thanks,
Craig
I’ve been running Windows ARM in Parallels on my M-series Macs since it was first possible to combine the two. Very stable. Started on my M1 Mac Mini, and now run on my M2 Max MBP without issue.
New Macs are ARM and not Intel. And the VM must be ARM (so, Windows for ARM must be the one being virtualized). There’s no Apple native way, and one of the most famous VM host apps is Parallels. Once you install Parallels (paid) it presents a way to download and install a Windows for ARM for your newly created Windows VM. Does Windows for ARM run Intel code? Yes. Windows contains a X86 emulator called WoW (Windows on Windows).
I have been running Windows 11 ARM in Parallels as @Anthony_G_Cyphers wrote about.
Using M1 Mini and no problems here at all.
They were a little later to the game than Parallels, but Fusion happily runs Windows 11 on my M1 MBP.
UTM is completely free, so you can try it ?
UTM was a nightmare on Big Sur because it couldn’t use virtualization, it had to emulate (this is a limitation of Big Sur). Windows 10 was so painful to install. It took me two whole days just to get through all the problems installing Windows 10.
I’m sure it’s useful when running a system more appropriate for it.
But, it’s worth a shot! Here’s the link: https://mac.getutm.app/
For UTM, here is a Tutorial with some steps. Windows 11 | UTM Documentation
I hope that today it is mature.
And yes, it needs more user intervention. And it is less performant than Parallels, and maybe even Fusion.
So what I am seeing here is: Yes Windows for ARM, but not Intel will / can run via some kind of virtualization software.
Is that summary correct?
It is important to me because I do have some Windows Intel applications that I have to keep running.
Those will run using Windows ARM.
Your Windows for ARM should run your Intel apps using the included Intel emulator (WoW). You don’t need to do anything, Windows will detect the EXE arch and load it using the WoW.
I guess you could go the UTM way and see for yourself if it is ok for you without spending $.
UTM says they can run Windows Intel on a Mac ARM, but is not recommended as it will be slower (don’t know how much). Even Windows XP or even PowerPC versions of the mac os.
@AlbertoD and @Rick_Araujo Got it.
Thanks!
This is what I had to deal with, the difference between virtualization and emulation. There were so many issues and I aimed at Windows 10 hoping it would be less resource hungry. I would recommend maybe not using anything newer than Windows 7 with emulation.
That may be fine. The applications I would need to run are not games.
Really? That is interesting and a little concerning.
Yes, most of my issues were with installation. Once I finally hit the desktop things were slow, but it wasn’t failing with problems. Thankfully I only needed to test opening a PDF with Acrobat on Windows. Got that done and got the heck out of there!
Then perhaps I need to wait a bit longer to take that step. Thanks Tim for your insight.
But there is no point.
Parallels runs Windows ARM.
Windows ARM runs every intel app I have thrown at it so far, including Intel Xojo apps of mine.
The Windows ARM in the parallels emulator runs faster than my dedicated actual Intel based Dell laptop. (Which I now regret buying - it’s gathering dust)
I installed UTM on macos 13 and did not have any issue.