It looks like Parallels has the same restrictions that you'd get from running Win11 ARM inside the UTM hypervisor on M1/M2 Macs (like I currently do): No WSL/WSA and no virtualization based security or sandboxes.
I've had a licensed copy of Win11 Arm running in Parallels for months. I just installed the dev version as mentioned in the AT article. At first it wouldn't let me buy a license, but at some point a few months ago it allowed me to buy a license and that has been fine ever since. Runs great. Good that the support has become official now.
I'm not relevant as a potential customer, but what I'd really like is Direct X 12 support so I could play various games in Parallels. Unfortunately I can't see that happening in a way that yields a worthwhile user experience any time soon.
I'm not a huge gamer but I feel like I might actually need to buy a Windows PC to play several games at some point. The list is growing. Right now I'd love to play HiFi Rush, but there's no possible way on an M1 Mac at the moment.
Every year Apple talks about their commitment to gaming, and every year macOS gaming gets worse. It was never in great shape, but switching to Metal, dropping 32-bit support, and launching Apple Silicon killed it deader than a doornail. Then there was the whole Epic debacle, and the Xbox/game streaming apps debacle, and the (multiple) Nvidia debacles... The benefits of those choices usually outweigh the loss, but they mean there will never be significant games on Macs again.
I expect killing their relationships with every game company in the world will make their VR headset efforts rather painful.
There was actually a time in Mac gaming in the late '90s through early '00s where most blockbuster strategy games would get ported to Mac OS. And this was when there were way fewer Macs in circulation than there are today. For example Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires II, Company of Heroes, etc. all had Mac native ports. Today, I'd like to play Age of Empires IV and Company of Heroes 3 but I'll probably need to get a PC for that.
Anecdata: I play a silly amount of World of Tanks on PC (DX11), running the x86 Windows release through parallels on the Mac is significantly more performant than it is to run it on MacOS via the official codeweavers wine wrapper.
This is likely due to only one layer of translation being done in MacOS, as opposed to the two of Wine.
I really hope this leads to performance enhancements with windows clients on parallels
Technically you can use any Windows 11 licence key (or even Win 10) to activate Windows 11 Arm in Parallels. Have been using it since last december and so far it has been much better experience than with any Windows PC...
Genuinely wonder what took this long. Was it a new decision around legal/strategy, just a low priority, or something technical that wasn't built by Parallels/Microsoft till now?
I am at a weird spot right now, where I have teenagers who want to play games that are on Windows, but am not wanting to do that through emulation like Parallels. But I am also not willing to purchase a Windows machine as my primary machine. So it leaves me not moving to Apple Silicon and just keeping my old Mac despite wanting to upgrade.
Does anyone have experience running Visual Studio (not VSCode) in Parallels? I'd like to update my older MacBook Pro with Boot Camp but I'm not leaving Windows Visual Studio for a poor native Mac version.
The Parallels desktop experience is shockingly well-accelerated. I played 1440p video from YouTube in a Microsoft Edge window (not in full-screen though) and didn't notice any appearance of dropped frames. Animations in Windows are smoother than they are on my 8th Gen Core i3 desktop.
As for full-blown Visual Studio, there is an ARM version now with most (but not all) workloads available. YMMV if you rely on those unavailable workloads or if you have x86/x64 DLLs in your project, but this has improved substantially I believe with Windows 11 ARM now supporting 64-bit/x64 translation (whereas Windows 10 ARM only supported 32-bit/x86 officially outside of Insider previews).
Sibling comments here don't square with my experience running VS2022 under Parallels on M1 MacBook Pro. I found it unusably slow for regular work and ended up moving back to a Dell laptop. This was a year back so perhaps things have changed, curious to know if anything has changed.
I use VS 2019 in Parallels with SSRS/SSIS and .Net Framework projects with little issues. I did have a problem with IIS Express breaking after each Windows update (fixed by uninstalled it and downloading the most recent from Msft) but that seems to have fixed. Now that Rider has an ARM build I use that for my 1 remaining .Net Framework project and it works fine.
Why would I do that? This is an honest question. I recently bought a Mac Mini coming from MSFT and I don't miss windows at all. I don't have to fight with it anymore when programming and testing things.
There are plenty of apps or features that remain Windows exclusive. In Microsoft's office suite, things like PowerBI only offer Windows desktop apps. And even within apps like Powerpoint there are features that don't exist in the Mac version (like grids). There are certainly equivalent or better alternatives to both of these examples available on Mac, but if your company uses these products Parallels could be a better alternative to having a second PC.
I haven't really loved Mac OS in a while, so I could see you could want the very nice Mac hardware but a different operating system. I never really did Windows-on-Mac much, besides some very occasional Boot Camp usage, but I did run Linux on a couple different Mac laptops for several years.
I don't think it really makes much sense now though... no particularly good reason not to just get a Dell XPS or something in that ballpark for your Linux or Windows needs and avoid the hassle.
The sheer absurdity of running Linux tools on WSL inside Parallels inside a Mac host might be worth something, too. (Or actually, can you even do that, with two levels of virtualization? I seem to remember this is an issue, maybe specifically on the new ARM chips.)
My dentist has some proprietary software to administer her practice (I don't think it does everything - maybe keeps X ray images, and some other stuff.) It's Windows only and she runs it in a Windows XP virtual machine of some kind. But all the computers in the office are Macs. She upgraded to the M1 iMacs but the old Windows software doesn't work in there. So she kept an old Intel Mac in a corner somewhere to run the software.
If she could run that in Arm Windows in a window on a Mac I'm sure she would.
I have moved all my development to my Mac (C#, Sql Server) except I need Visual Studio for .Net Framework, SSIS and SSRS projects. Visual Studio for Windows ARM recently came out but doesn't work with most extensions, so I still use VS 2019.
It’s not for you, it’s a way for Microsoft employees and Windows fanboys finally being officially able to buy good hardware and run Windows on it. I can’t imagine how awful it must be for all those Windows bros to see everyone else work on amazing M2 hardware whilst they are trodding behind on the shit show that the entire Surface brand is.
The original source[1] only says it's authorised through parallels, not how to do it. Will parallels soon take you to microsoft link that requires payment I wonder?
Parallels now automatically downloads Windows 11 and sets it up for you (including skipping Microsoft account), just tried today. However, it is not an activated Windows install, and it will take you to the Store asking you to purchase a Windows 11 Pro license for $199, but you can use it unactivated with the typical non-activated Windows restrictions. According to internet commentators, Windows 11 Pro x86/x64 retail keys are now acceptable whereas they previously were not, so if you have any of those lying around (or a Windows 10, or 8.1, or 7 Pro key as they are often grandfathered-in), they'll do the trick.
Which, if you are buying Windows for this purpose, I'd strongly recommend just buying a retail package. If you buy in the Microsoft Store, it will be tied to your Microsoft Account which isn't really desirable, as retail keys are transferrable between computers [1] whereas OEM keys and MSA-purchased keys aren't.
[1] Many people don't know this - don't buy the OEM version of Windows for $20 cheaper. It will be tied to your unique hardware - but retail keys won't. Upgrade your workstation three years from now? If you have a retail key, you can wipe Windows from your old PC and activate on the new one, completely within the license, with no need to purchase again.
This is good new to people I know at work, for me since at work I use Linux it is a non-issue.
People on MACs need to have 1 proprietary application that is only partially works on MACs (& Linux). So that will make the MAC people happy. On Linux I have a Windows VM in case I need to use that feature.
A lot of the commenters in this thread are either very young, or completely forgot about the "embrace, extend, extinguish" era of Microsoft in the 90s and 00s.
Still an ARM version. It's a real shame it's impossible to run x86-64 Windows 10 via Bootcamp on M1/M2. I'm suspicious that the compatibility and performance of ARM Windows on Parallels is good enough to use full time. All other laptop hardware I've used is frustratingly crappy compared to MacBooks.
There's no Bootcamp on M1/M2 hardware as of yet. But the Asahi folks have a standard UEFI implementation, so it would be possible to run ARM64 Windows if drivers for the Apple silicon were available.
x86 software runs fine on Windows for ARM nowadays. I've been using it on Parallels for the last year and it has been working great (I don't do any high performance stuff on Windows though).
The biggest compatibility hurdle was the lack of DirectX 12 support in Parallels. Otherwise the performance and compatibility of ARM based Windows was fantastic, I used my MacBook almost exclusively in the Windows Parallels VM for about 6 months. Microsoft has had their own ARM based devices for a long time so they've built up a great x86 translation layer.
Just in case you or someone else didn’t know; “Bootcamp” is a tool that allows anyone to set up dual-boot on their Mac without having to touch the bootloader or hunt for drivers. It’s not an emulation or virtualization solution, which is why it wouldn’t work with x86 Windows.
[+] [-] neogodless|3 years ago|reply
> These licensing problems haven't technically stopped people from running the Arm version of Windows on other hardware, including Apple Silicon Macs
> Microsoft is formally blessing Parallels as a way to run the Professional and Enterprise versions of Windows 11 on Apple Silicon Macs
Original source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-usin...
> Parallels® Desktop version 18 is an authorized solution
In other words, you could (unofficially) do this before, but now it's allowed according to the terms of your license.
[+] [-] jasoneckert|3 years ago|reply
It looks like Parallels has the same restrictions that you'd get from running Win11 ARM inside the UTM hypervisor on M1/M2 Macs (like I currently do): No WSL/WSA and no virtualization based security or sandboxes.
[+] [-] dev_tty01|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|3 years ago|reply
I'm not a huge gamer but I feel like I might actually need to buy a Windows PC to play several games at some point. The list is growing. Right now I'd love to play HiFi Rush, but there's no possible way on an M1 Mac at the moment.
[+] [-] Miraste|3 years ago|reply
I expect killing their relationships with every game company in the world will make their VR headset efforts rather painful.
[+] [-] WoodenChair|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsiklon|3 years ago|reply
This is likely due to only one layer of translation being done in MacOS, as opposed to the two of Wine.
I really hope this leads to performance enhancements with windows clients on parallels
[+] [-] mvac|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simongr3dal|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fragmede|3 years ago|reply
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsins...
[+] [-] cecida|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealNGenius|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] crazygringo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattcantstop|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zone411|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gjsman-1000|3 years ago|reply
As for full-blown Visual Studio, there is an ARM version now with most (but not all) workloads available. YMMV if you rely on those unavailable workloads or if you have x86/x64 DLLs in your project, but this has improved substantially I believe with Windows 11 ARM now supporting 64-bit/x64 translation (whereas Windows 10 ARM only supported 32-bit/x86 officially outside of Insider previews).
[+] [-] Sakos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babypuncher|3 years ago|reply
I haven't spent much time with it myself but a lot of my colleagues swear by it even on Windows.
[+] [-] danjc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigtex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgjohnson|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elforce002|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuart78|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerocrates|3 years ago|reply
I don't think it really makes much sense now though... no particularly good reason not to just get a Dell XPS or something in that ballpark for your Linux or Windows needs and avoid the hassle.
The sheer absurdity of running Linux tools on WSL inside Parallels inside a Mac host might be worth something, too. (Or actually, can you even do that, with two levels of virtualization? I seem to remember this is an issue, maybe specifically on the new ARM chips.)
[+] [-] massysett|3 years ago|reply
If she could run that in Arm Windows in a window on a Mac I'm sure she would.
[+] [-] bigtex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zuhsetaqi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jan_Inkepa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dustedcodes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kristianp|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-usin...
[+] [-] gjsman-1000|3 years ago|reply
Which, if you are buying Windows for this purpose, I'd strongly recommend just buying a retail package. If you buy in the Microsoft Store, it will be tied to your Microsoft Account which isn't really desirable, as retail keys are transferrable between computers [1] whereas OEM keys and MSA-purchased keys aren't.
[1] Many people don't know this - don't buy the OEM version of Windows for $20 cheaper. It will be tied to your unique hardware - but retail keys won't. Upgrade your workstation three years from now? If you have a retail key, you can wipe Windows from your old PC and activate on the new one, completely within the license, with no need to purchase again.
[+] [-] Inviz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsiklon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmclnx|3 years ago|reply
People on MACs need to have 1 proprietary application that is only partially works on MACs (& Linux). So that will make the MAC people happy. On Linux I have a Windows VM in case I need to use that feature.
[+] [-] bigmadwolf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostmsu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yieldcrv|3 years ago|reply
I suggest you all totally forget about it too
[+] [-] olliej|3 years ago|reply
By what measure? Is the verge expecting x86 windows?
[+] [-] lopkeny12ko|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rswail|3 years ago|reply
Microsoft was founded 40+ years ago. It's changed over that time. So has Apple.
So has the entire IT market.
[+] [-] quyleanh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xnx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jborean93|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zozbot234|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zsims|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwkl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zamadatix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Toutouxc|3 years ago|reply