Microsoft releases new Windows 11 builds, confirms running on an Apple M1 'is not a supported scenario' Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 on Apple's M1 is not "a supported scenario" for the OS that stands to bring so much joy to OEMs. The confirmation was given to The Register by a Microsoft spokesperson as the super-corp unleashed an ad campaign for the Windows 11 operating system, due in less than a month, and continued …
Obviously running directly on Apple's M1 hardware will not be a supported scenario, because Apple does not provide Windows drivers for their hardware and Microsoft is not going to write them.
The correct question to ask them is whether running on Apple M1 hardware in a VM like Parallels or VMware is / will be a "supported scenario"?
It appears Microsoft considers anything outside the specified x86 + Qualcomm chipsets is unsupported, so yes, even W11 within a Parallels or VMware hypervisor on an M1 Mac would be unsupported.
Edit: We specifically asked about Windows 11 on Parallels on an M1 and were told this is an "unsupported scenario."
What happened was this: Parallels 17 on M1 ran W11 Insider build. Then W11 stopped working as it declared the hypervisor unsupported hardware. Then Parallels 17.0.1 came out and W11 started running on it again. We asked Microsoft if this setup is supported or not, and MS said W11 on Parallels on an M1 is an "unsupported scenario". Parallels didn't say what it changed to make the OS work.
So in fact, we asked the question you wanted. Job done.
C.
Windows 11 runs, officially, on the specified Intel and AMD x86 processors and Qualcomm's Arm-compatible system-on-chips.
If you try to run Windows 11 on anything other than the specified Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm chips, it's unsupported.
The Apple M1 is thus unsupported, with or without a hypervisor like Parallels.
C.
Why would anyone pay an arm and a leg for barely usable hardware when they can use decent x86 devices for a fraction of the cost? The M1 CPU makes for a usable computer but nothing else seems to come close when compared to recent AMD/Intel CPUs. I’m just not convinced that Microsoft wants people to use the ARM build of Windows as much as they want people to know it exists for satisfying-the-shareholders purposes.
Makes for a usable computer? Yes it does, it blows any x86/x86_64 out of the water until you get to the higher and higher core counts. Even in terms of cost it is so much cheaper for the performance. Yes Apple is cheaper for better performance!
That's bizarre that they won't support any platform but Qualcomm's. Maybe they did a deal and Qualcomm paid them for ARM exclusivity? The poor quality of Qualcomm's platforms, at least so far, may doom Microsoft's latest attempt at non-x86 Windows just like those that came before.
They have partnered with Qualcomm and they have produced a version of Windows that runs on specific Qualcomm SoCs. All OEMs that have produced ARM based kit use these SOCs. Therefore there is no reason to "waste time and resources" supporting anything else, because, from Microsoft's viewpoint, there is nothing else out there that can run Windows on Snapdragon - Windows for ARM (Snapdragon) is only available to OEMs for sale pre-installed on hardware with the supported Snapdragon SoCs, you can't actually buy a license retail, so you can't legally run a production machine running another ARM chipset (you can run the Dev Channel builds without a license, but no business will use it for production purposes).
The M1 Macs, and the Raspberry Pi 4/400 are not Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets, they are using something completely different. Therefore, if you manage to get it running on your set-up, bully for you, but don't expect it to stay stable or get any support if something goes wrong.
It doesn't seem to me that this is a Windows question. The question should be directed at the third party vendors, in this case Parallels and VMWare. If you have a problem with, say, Parallels, you go to them for support, not Microsoft.
Win11 specifications leave a bunch of hardware stuck on Win10 (which is a whole other discussion). If the M1 hardware cannot be supported by third parties, they will join the list of hardware that can't upgrade.
Actually, as I understand it. Apple haven’t said they won’t supply drivers, they’ve merely pointed out that there isn’t currently a way for users to buy (or other legal way of obtaining) a licence for Windows’s. Even when they supported windows on a Mac, Apple required the user to obtain their own copy.
I suspect Parallels has just patched something in their software that Windows 11 checks for to see if its running on supported hardware to make it believe it is supported?
Just like those who run Hackintoshes to run MacOS on none Apple hardware do to make that work. No doubt MS will change the way they detect supported machines when they figure out what Parallels has done and the dance will begin over again.
I keep seeing irate Apple sheeps with their shiny new M1 based stuff, complaining everywhere that "this monitor does not work with my M1 based Apple at an optimum resolution for ME!" etc etc. but complaining about "this version of Windows did not take into account MY purchasing of incompatible hardware!" is special.
Decisions have consequences - you bought an Apple M1 based something, that is deliberatley non-standard. You made an expensive mistake - own it and move on.
>you bought an Apple M1 based something, that is deliberatley non-standard.
Did I miss something here? I thought Apple announced they planned to move from x86 over to M1/successors over the course of about two years. That would not make the M1 "non-standard", that would make M1 the "new standard".
What new monitors can't support the newer standard resolutions? Unless it was an old piece of kit, and the punter needs to support broadcast 1080i - It looks more like an expensive mistake when buying the monitor - I'd hope that anyone who needed 1080i instead of 4K, and 6K/or DisplayPort output over USB‑C Thunderbolt 2, DVI and VGA, would know enough to check before they bought new equipment...
I have an M1 and it’s better than I was expecting. It runs Civ 5 better than my 2018 mini + egpu. Does anyone know when or if someone might enable x86 virtualization in a VM? I would like to be able to move my XP VM over to it.
Edit to add: I guess you’d call it emulation instead of virtualization, but it’s sort of a blurry line in the M1 case.
Just when you think everything is finally settling down and getting along we get Apple only running ARM now, MS only runs Windows if you have mobo made in the last 2 years!
When Apple announced M1 kit I was on the brink of buying a Mac. I liked the iMac I had about 10 years ago, it was a nice tidy piece of kit, you couldn't expand it obviously but it did the job. Then I wanted more horsepower and self-built tower was my only viable option.
I'm sure Win11 is a lovely, shiny, secure but I really can't be arsed to spend a week finding the right compatible components to run it. It took me 2 weeks to source the components for my current tower box, I haven't got the time to waste keeping MS happy. I'll just keep using Win10 until MS issue my set up with a "kill switch" and force me to shut down and finally switch to Linux once and for all.
Buy a cheap crapp laptop off eBay, install Linux and force myself to be happy with that! So sick of how fragmented the home computing market has got, it's like we're heading back to the early 1980s where no one wants to get along and they all have their own standards now!
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