Xojo apps on Windows on ARM on Parallels on M1

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Is it possible to run Intel apps on a M1 Mac? I just gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised: I was able to run 32 and 64 bit win32 apps built with Xojo…

Steps:

  1. Get the technical preview of Parallels for M1 macs: Parallels Desktop for Mac with Apple M1 chip (Apple Silicon)
  2. Download the Windows Insider build of Windows for ARM: Download Windows Insider Preview ARM64

In brief testing, my 32 bit Xojo app worked fine. My 64 bit Xojo app had a little more trouble. One thing I noticed is that my ISS (InnoSetup installer script) had this line:

ArchitecturesAllowed=x64

which prevents the installer from running on ARM Windows.
I changed it to

ArchitecturesAllowed=x64 arm64

and it now works.

I’m still seeing some issues which I think have to do with file paths on windows that I’m investigating, but overall I was pretty happy with how my software worked.

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I’ve been running this setup since I received my M1 and the Parallels preview came out and have been shocked at the stability of traditional Windows apps on ARM.

That being said: one of my apps does alot of graphical work, and I’ve seen numerous issues there that I just haven’t found the time to report. I’m assuming it’s the display driver causing the trouble, and get crashes with D2D reporting “SUCCESS”.

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Followup link to more recent discussion Win 10 emulation on M1 Mac