A developer has successfully been able to virtualize the ARM version of Windows on Apple Silicon using the QEMU virtualizer.
Apple’s M1 MacBooks have proved their worth when it comes to performance and battery efficiency. But, since these run on a custom ARM chip, it’s not yet possible to install, dual boot, or emulate Windows; which is in popular demand.
Developer Alexander Graf, however, took to Twitter today to share his achievement: successfully being able to virtualize ARM Windows on Apple Silicon.
Nothing too surprising, of course, but the real barrier to Windows on ARM running on M1-equipped Macs is not running Windows on M1 Macs, but Microsoft actually making the ARM version of Windows available for this very purpose.
Microsoft not making the ARM version of Windows available for this very purpose would be unfortunate if the ARM version of Windows had a purpose in life in general. There are no win32/win64 apps on Windows on ARM, which basically means the ARM version of Windows is “Windows without WIndows compatibility”. Mind you, Windows on ARM does have a secret win32/win64 stack, but only for Microsoft Office, which is available as a native app in Macs. Users wanting to run win32/win64 apps on ARM Macs are out of luck.
Windows on ARM has a virtualisation layer for x86 apps.
It does? I thought it was under development. I mean x86 and x64 emulation.
And even then, I don’t want to be stuck emulating x86 or x64 forever, they should allow us to compile win32 and win64 for ARM, since the stack is there anyway for their own Microsoft Office. Once most apps would have been recompiled, I ‘d consider Windows ARM useful.
Windows on ARM is not WinRT
You are allowed to compile software for x86, x86-64 and ARM since Windows 10 on ARM exists :
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2018/11/15/official-support-for-windows-10-on-arm-development/
Am I correct that Microsoft doesn’t want this sort of thing to work? If so, this might be the new thing that hackintosh makers will do now.
Apparently Parallels is working on this:
https://www.parallels.com/blogs/parallels-desktop-apple-silicon-mac/
They don’t explicitly say anything about licensing Windows ARM from Microsoft, but in the same blog post they say they’re impressed by Microsoft’s plans to add x64 support to Windows ARM, so there’s no question they’re going to at least try.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/20/craig-federighi-on-windows-for-m1-macs/
This blurb sort of implies that windows on M1 lies entirely on microsoft’s shoulders, however it could be that apple wants microsoft to pay it royalties to allow windows to run on the M1 and it’s up to microsoft whether or not it will pay apple to license the tech. I am trying to find a full contextual quote from Federighi, but so far I cannot find it.
Apple allowing anything else to run natively on the M1 would be newsworthy. If anyone has any official or even credible unofficial information, please link it.
Torvalds, like many of us, has shown interest in linux running natively on the M1, but does not believe apple wants to make it happen.
https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2020/11/23/linus-torvalds-wants-apples-new-m1-powered-macs-to-run-linux/
And I think Torvalds is right. Apple isn’t likely to help and if anything they may actively fight to keep alt OS from working on their new ARM PCs. I’d like to be wrong here, let me know if anyone has more information.
Another explanation for Microsoft being completely silent on this subject for months now may be that it doesn’t want to embarrass its hardware partners and cause their respective fledgling ARM hardware initiatives to be stillborn.
Microsoft may also want to offer Windows x86 and ARM desktops in the cloud, so facilitating Windows ARM to be run on Apple Silicon might hinder adoption of that as well.
I can see that Microsoft might license Windows to Apple users at a premium while paying royalties to Apple for access to documentation and engineers, which would make this whole exercise futile and only an option for the minority of people who need macOS and Windows running on one and the same device.
psychicist,
We’ll probably never know what happened behind closed door negotiations. Maybe a decade or two from now some participants will talk and we’ll see an article about it in the headlines.
It depends, a million bucks could buy a few full time devs to work with microsoft on it. Given that microsoft already has windows on ARM it’s surely pretty close to working anyways. However apple might instead demand a per device royalty to give microsoft the right to distribute windows on M1 ARM computers. So apple would be selling the hardware to consumers, but also be getting a kickback from microsoft when consumers buy a copy of windows for their hardware. If it were to happen like this, I wouldn’t be a fan of it. It’s too much like a walled garden for operating systems.
Interesting, though probably not directly useful until Windows on ARM has a better emulation layer. At this point, most of the applications for which you might opt to run Windows for some reason(Adobe, Office, other productivity apps) would have to run in X86 emulation within ARM Windows. Some, such as Adobe, cannot yet do this as Windows does not emulate X64, but only X86. Given this, you might as well just run the 64-bit Intel Mac versions since Apple’s emulation layer does support X64 and runs at better speed. Regardless, knowing that qemu does work on M1 Macs is important.
I was hoping Apple would open up OS X then Steve Jobs got control freaky and paranoid. This burned a lot of goodwill. I have increasingly gone off Apple to the point I no longer care.