Bootable Windows 10 any time soon?

[leman]

Bootable Windows will probably never happen due to difficulty of writing drivers. I very much doubt that either Apple or MS would be interested in writing and supporting DX, Vulkan and OpenGL Windows driver for their GPUs.

Windows in a virtual machine hivewer? Probably this summer.

 

[aplnub]

I have an entire office of iMacs. Everyone runs a VM for Windows because of two programs. Half of the office uses one and the other half uses another Win based program. We are ordering new intel iMacs (on-going) to get us through the next five years when hopefully we can virtualize Windows on an M series Mac or everyone gets a Windows notebook on their desk to supplement their Mac. I am hanging on a Late 2014 iMac waiting this out because I am the only one who doesn't "need" Windows in a VM.

 

[Chompineer]

Aside from coders, many professionals such as whom? Any proof of this?

Engineers, for one. The proof being me and all the others I know.

its very rare any engineering software is written for Intel Mac’s, but at least you could get by with virtualization.

As it stands there is no way to use S-Frame (or any of the S-Suite), Civil3D, Microstation, etc. Just about the only thing you can use is MATLAB.

Its a shame because Mac’s handle font rendering so much better than windows, so it’s not so bad staring at the screen all day.

 

[hotdwag]

Apple is pushing virtualization and not multiboot environments. I've tested the parallels technical preview with win10 ARM and Ubuntu ARM with a simple gnome interface. Surprisingly it works well in terms of integration and performance for my use cases. There's also crossover that works okay when I tested with some win steam games. I would like to see more direct support for win10 ARM for virtualization from Microsoft where there's an exception to the OEM requirement (Maybe identifying parallels or VMWare as OEMs...) Microsoft is also supporting an opencl / opengl compatibility layer for DirectX (which apple silicon supports but is "legacy") which would be great to see support for.

 

[guzhogi]

Uh yeah, since it's a Mac and it's an Apple computer. Ya think?

There are a lot less people than you think doing this.

Apple's computers are for MacOS. Period. Apple does not make Macs just to run Windows. There's really no benefit for Apple anymore to offer this feature. You have plenty of options in the Windows world. Come on!

Chill, Maconplasma. Everyone has their own needs/wants. Sure Apple may design Macs to run macOS, but that doesn't have to be an "end all, be all" decision. How many products have started out for one purpose, but have found popularity in another purpose? Besides, a lot of responsibility for Windows on Macs will fall on Microsoft, who I'm sure will love the extra revenue from selling more Windows licenses.

I'm not sure that makes a lot of difference for Microsoft's business decisions. Again, if Microsoft wanted to run Windows on the M1, why no statements? It seems that Microsoft might be happy to have no Windows competition from Apple for their own Surface notebooks and tablets.

Maybe, but under that same logic, why license Windows to other companies (eg Dell, HP, etc.) and custom-built PC enthusiasts?

 

[Maconplasma]

Engineers, for one. The proof being me and all the others I know.

its very rare any engineering software is written for Intel Mac’s, but at least you could get by with virtualization.

As it stands there is no way to use S-Frame (or any of the S-Suite), Civil3D, Microstation, etc. Just about the only thing you can use is MATLAB.

Its a shame because Mac’s handle font rendering so much better than windows, so it’s not so bad staring at the screen all day.

Well for your use case you’re best suited with a Windows machine and not a Mac. Windows will do everything you need. The MacOS cannot. Makes zero sense to buy a product that you can’t use for its intended purpose.

 

[Maconplasma]

Chill, Maconplasma. Everyone has their own needs/wants. Sure Apple may design Macs to run macOS, but that doesn't have to be an "end all, be all" decision. How many products have started out for one purpose, but have found popularity in another purpose? Besides, a lot of responsibility for Windows on Macs will fall on Microsoft, who I'm sure will love the extra revenue from selling more Windows licenses.


Maybe, but under that same logic, why license Windows to other companies (eg Dell, HP, etc.) and custom-built PC enthusiasts?

You need to chill. I don’t care for the tone. ?

 

[AHDuke99]

I doubt it will ever come unless Intel/AMD move entirely away from x86 to ARM. There is almost no chance Apple and Microsoft agree to bring Windows to the Mac.

We're back in the PPC period where Macs will run Mac OS and maybe emulate Windows in some manner, but it won't be at native speed. The days of dual booting are over for the foreseeable future.

 

[dmccloud]

I doubt it will ever come unless Intel/AMD move entirely away from x86 to ARM. There is almost no chance Apple and Microsoft agree to bring Windows to the Mac.

We're back in the PPC period where Macs will run Mac OS and maybe emulate Windows in some manner, but it won't be at native speed. The days of dual booting are over for the foreseeable future.

Not even remotely close to the same situation. Unlike the PPC era (where there was no version of Windows for the PPC processor), Microsoft already has Windows on ARM (WoA) running on its Surface Pro X as well as models from Samsung and Lenovo (among others). Microsoft would just need to change the current licensing of WoA (system builders only) to a license that would allow installation on other systems. Apple is on record as stating that the only thing preventing Windows from running on an M1 Mac is Microsoft themselves. We've already seen testing (WoA Insider Preview being run via either QEMU or the Parallels beta) that shows WoA on the M1 actually outperforms the Surface Pro X despite being virtualized.

 

[bobcomer]

Everyone has their own needs/wants. Sure Apple may design Macs to run macOS, but that doesn't have to be an "end all, be all" decision. How many products have started out for one purpose, but have found popularity in another purpose? Besides, a lot of responsibility for Windows on Macs will fall on Microsoft, who I'm sure will love the extra revenue from selling more Windows licenses.

Count me as one of those people that want Windows emulation on the new M1 Macs, and for pretty much the same reason, the screen and fonts. It does hi-res scaling so much better than Windows does itself, that for my personal stuff, I want to use a Mac. Even though I need to run Windows apps. . I'm not at all impressed with Windows on Arm, and would rather have an x86 emulator, but it's possible Windows on Arm might get good enough to be useable in a virtual machine. Heaven forbid that we want a Mac's screen and to run Windows apps!.

 

[Maconplasma]

Count me as one of those people that want Windows emulation on the new M1 Macs, and for pretty much the same reason, the screen and fonts. It does hi-res scaling so much better than Windows does itself, that for my personal stuff, I want to use a Mac. Even though I need to run Windows apps. . I'm not at all impressed with Windows on Arm, and would rather have an x86 emulator, but it's possible Windows on Arm might get good enough to be useable in a virtual machine. Heaven forbid that we want a Mac's screen and to run Windows apps!.

No you don't. You want the Apple hardware to run Windows on. It's obvious you don't want to use it as an actual Mac. That's exactly why I hope Apple pushes running MacOS and let's Windows remain on PC's. Apple needs to focus on fine tuning MacOS and their other softwares to run on it. I don't want them wasting resources to shoehorn Windows onto it just to satisfy the niche who wants to install Windows.

 

[bobcomer]

No you don't. You want the Apple hardware to run Windows on. It's obvious you don't want to use it as an actual Mac. That's exactly why I hope Apple pushes running MacOS and let's Windows remain on PC's.

You have no clue what I want. I want to run my Mac as a Mac most of the time, because of the OS, not the hardware. And I need an occasional Windows app.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Aside from coders, many professionals such as whom? Any proof of this?

I used to do this, either via Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion, but I found a decreasing need to have Windows on my MBP because most of the software I needed on a daily basis ran just fine on a Mac.

About 6 years ago I started to ramp up usage of cloud computing services in my work, and now find it's easier, *far* less time consuming, and relatively cheap, to run just run other OSes on cloud instances (AWS, MS Azure, Google compute cloud).

I do have some older Windows PCs for some specialized software that just isn't available anywhere else and don't play well running on a VM (need lots of I/O), but I use these infrequently, and wouldn't want to clog-up my limited SSD space with a dual boot or VM image.

 

[Maconplasma]

Count me as one of those people that want Windows emulation on the new M1 Macs, and for pretty much the same reason, the screen and fonts. It does hi-res scaling so much better than Windows does itself, that for my personal stuff, I want to use a Mac. Even though I need to run Windows apps. . I'm not at all impressed with Windows on Arm, and would rather have an x86 emulator, but it's possible Windows on Arm might get good enough to be useable in a virtual machine. Heaven forbid that we want a Mac's screen and to run Windows apps!.

You have no clue what I want. I want to run my Mac as a Mac most of the time, because of the OS, not the hardware. And I need an occasional Windows app.

Oh I don't have a clue? Did you not state that you want a Mac even though you need to run Windows apps? That's what you what said in your post I highlighted. Now you're saying it's a "occasional" Windows app? Doesn't sound like you have a clue what you want. SMH.

 

[Fomalhaut]

One of the most popular computers on the Microsoft campus is a MacBook Pro.

Running Windows or MacOS?

 

[Fomalhaut]

It's an amazing first step but won't replace a regularly bootable Windows 10.

Another point is how Apple hasn't provided other companies with early access to the platform in order to release their Software at launch such as Avid, which is an audio production platform predominantly used by Apple users in Post-Audio for music, tv and movies.

Considering Apple competes in the same space with Final Cut Pro, that may have been a commercial decision not to actively help Avid.

Avid was welcome to join the developer program and get a DTK MacMini 8 months ago on which to port their software.

 

[thedocbwarren]

Running Windows or MacOS?

TTrue at Google as well. I know a few people running macOS that work at Microsoft.

 

[Chompineer]

Well for your use case you’re best suited with a Windows machine and not a Mac. Windows will do everything you need. The MacOS cannot. Makes zero sense to buy a product that you can’t use for its intended purpose.

Did you forget to read the part about font rendering or? M$ has zero interest in improving how they render fonts, which is a real shame when you stare at text 10+ hours a day.

I have a Windows machine (10850k/32gb/RTX3090 and a LG 34" Ultrawide), but I still keep an M1 air as a personal use machine. It would be nice to be able to use it as more than just a toy.

You realize engineers enjoy to tinker, yes?

 

[Maconplasma]

Did you forget to read the part about font rendering or? M$ has zero interest in improving how they render fonts, which is a real shame when you stare at text 10+ hours a day.

Uh which part is having a problem with font rendering, Windows or Microsoft's laptops? Because if you're having an issue with font rendering in Windows then the Mac is not the solution. If it's not Windows then you can get a different Windows machine that renders fonts better.

I have a Windows machine (10850k/32gb/RTX3090 and a LG 34" Ultrawide), but I still keep an M1 air as a personal use machine. It would be nice to be able to use it as more than just a toy.

You realize engineers enjoy to tinker, yes?

You can't call a M1 Mac a toy then at the same time say engineers enjoy to tinker. And what does the Mac have to do with tinkering? Generally that's something you do with a Windows machine, which brings back my point. And lastly about the toy comment, if you have to refer to a Mac as a toy then it's useless to you in terms of running any important software, which is why a Windows machine is better suited.
And just for the record if the Mac in general does in fact offer better font rendering while running Windows then your sole purpose for having a Mac is for the hardware only, especially if it's only a toy to you running MacOS. For that reason alone it's money wasted. And this is exactly why I want Apple to focus their resources improving MacOS and their software that runs on it rather than wasting resources making it support Windows for the small amount of people who want it.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Did you forget to read the part about font rendering or? M$ has zero interest in improving how they render fonts, which is a real shame when you stare at text 10+ hours a day.

I have a Windows machine (10850k/32gb/RTX3090 and a LG 34" Ultrawide), but I still keep an M1 air as a personal use machine. It would be nice to be able to use it as more than just a toy.

What is that that you want to do with your machine? Calling it "a toy" because it doesn't run your specialist engineering software seems a bit unfair, but I suppose this may be your perception of anything that can't run your work software. Does "not work" = "not serious use" for you?

There is a good selection of professional software on the M1 for many productivity and creative tasks, and it's very strong in support for audio/visual apps. It's also a great platform for software development.

You realize engineers enjoy to tinker, yes?

Nothing stopping you from experimenting. You have full access to the operating system, and tools to develop your own software. It's just another *nix box, and ARM releases of tools & libraries are growing by the day.

 

[robco74]

Microsoft may not want to license Windows on ARM to run on Apple Silicon because it may very well run faster, even in a VM, than it does on Microsoft's own Surface Pro X.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

To go to the original question - initial disclaimer: I have no Apple or Microsoft inside knowledge, but I *WAS* at a hardware company in '99-2000 and again in 2008-2010, and dealt tangentially with the relationship between that vendor and Microsoft - including during the introduction of a new processor architecture. The below is largely conjecture, but it is "educated conjecture" based on similar experience.

• Apple has disclaimed ownership of this process. They have said it's up to Microsoft.
• Microsoft generally helps hardware vendors, but doesn't do all the work themselves.
• Microsoft has already done the major work needed in this instance, porting to ARM.
• Apple's ARM (as every ARM CPU) has custom instructions, and custom support chips. While "basic support" can almost certainly be written without inside knowledge, performance would not be good.
• This isn't even getting in to drivers for non-CPU components. This is purely "minimum bootable."
• Hardware vendors are generally 100% responsible for writing drivers for their hardware. Microsoft offers generous assistance in this process, but this process is completely owned by the hardware vendor.
• This means things like Apple's GPU, storage system, and many other *CORE* components, wouldn't work out of the box with just Microsoft developing. Especially since Apple won't release the hardware details.
• This means that Apple's "it's all on Microsoft" is at least partly a bluff. Apple hates poor user experience. (In their mind.) If Microsoft were to release a "retail Windows 10 for Apple Silicon Macs" with zero Apple involvement, it would *SUCK*. While some might think it would reflect badly on Microsoft, it would also reflect badly on Apple.
  Apple wouldn't want that. Microsoft knows it.
• If Microsoft develops Windows for M1, they will let Apple know privately, and give Apple the chance to write drivers.
• Apple isn't against writing Windows software/drivers - Boot Camp has existed since early on in the Intel timeframe, iTunes for Windows has existed longer than that, QuickTime for Windows since the early '90s. Apple has been writing Windows software almost since the beginning of Windows.

My prediction: This *WILL* happen, because Microsoft wants to sell Windows to Apple users. As for timeframe? I'd wild-ass-guess predict sometime this Summer Microsoft/Apple will come out with an "official prerelease version" (Microsoft will say it's all them, Apple won't claim any part of it yet,) with tons of caveats and warnings, and terrible performance. Then in fall, Apple will publicly give it their blessing and release Boot Camp drivers, and Microsoft will release the commercial/retail version.

 

[jdb8167]

To go to the original question - initial disclaimer: I have no Apple or Microsoft inside knowledge, but I *WAS* at a hardware company in '99-2000 and again in 2008-2010, and dealt tangentially with the relationship between that vendor and Microsoft - including during the introduction of a new processor architecture. The below is largely conjecture, but it is "educated conjecture" based on similar experience.

• Apple has disclaimed ownership of this process. They have said it's up to Microsoft.
• Microsoft generally helps hardware vendors, but doesn't do all the work themselves.
• Microsoft has already done the major work needed in this instance, porting to ARM.
• Apple's ARM (as every ARM CPU) has custom instructions, and custom support chips. While "basic support" can almost certainly be written without inside knowledge, performance would not be good.
• This isn't even getting in to drivers for non-CPU components. This is purely "minimum bootable."
• Hardware vendors are generally 100% responsible for writing drivers for their hardware. Microsoft offers generous assistance in this process, but this process is completely owned by the hardware vendor.
• This means things like Apple's GPU, storage system, and many other *CORE* components, wouldn't work out of the box with just Microsoft developing. Especially since Apple won't release the hardware details.
• This means that Apple's "it's all on Microsoft" is at least partly a bluff. Apple hates poor user experience. (In their mind.) If Microsoft were to release a "retail Windows 10 for Apple Silicon Macs" with zero Apple involvement, it would *SUCK*. While some might think it would reflect badly on Microsoft, it would also reflect badly on Apple.
  Apple wouldn't want that. Microsoft knows it.
• If Microsoft develops Windows for M1, they will let Apple know privately, and give Apple the chance to write drivers.
• Apple isn't against writing Windows software/drivers - Boot Camp has existed since early on in the Intel timeframe, iTunes for Windows has existed longer than that, QuickTime for Windows since the early '90s. Apple has been writing Windows software almost since the beginning of Windows.

My prediction: This *WILL* happen, because Microsoft wants to sell Windows to Apple users. As for timeframe? I'd wild-ass-guess predict sometime this Summer Microsoft/Apple will come out with an "official prerelease version" (Microsoft will say it's all them, Apple won't claim any part of it yet,) with tons of caveats and warnings, and terrible performance. Then in fall, Apple will publicly give it their blessing and release Boot Camp drivers, and Microsoft will release the commercial/retail version.

I'm pretty sure that Apple was saying that their hypervisor was available. Microsoft hasn't made a Windows on ARM license available for use in a VM. That is how most are interpreting Apple's statement. Considering that the current Parallels preview boots Window on ARM already, most of what you wrote seems irrelevant.

 

[leman]

To go to the original question - initial disclaimer: I have no Apple or Microsoft inside knowledge, but I *WAS* at a hardware company in '99-2000 and again in 2008-2010, and dealt tangentially with the relationship between that vendor and Microsoft - including during the introduction of a new processor architecture. The below is largely conjecture, but it is "educated conjecture" based on similar experience.

• Apple has disclaimed ownership of this process. They have said it's up to Microsoft.
• Microsoft generally helps hardware vendors, but doesn't do all the work themselves.
• Microsoft has already done the major work needed in this instance, porting to ARM.
• Apple's ARM (as every ARM CPU) has custom instructions, and custom support chips. While "basic support" can almost certainly be written without inside knowledge, performance would not be good.
• This isn't even getting in to drivers for non-CPU components. This is purely "minimum bootable."
• Hardware vendors are generally 100% responsible for writing drivers for their hardware. Microsoft offers generous assistance in this process, but this process is completely owned by the hardware vendor.
• This means things like Apple's GPU, storage system, and many other *CORE* components, wouldn't work out of the box with just Microsoft developing. Especially since Apple won't release the hardware details.
• This means that Apple's "it's all on Microsoft" is at least partly a bluff. Apple hates poor user experience. (In their mind.) If Microsoft were to release a "retail Windows 10 for Apple Silicon Macs" with zero Apple involvement, it would *SUCK*. While some might think it would reflect badly on Microsoft, it would also reflect badly on Apple.
  Apple wouldn't want that. Microsoft knows it.
• If Microsoft develops Windows for M1, they will let Apple know privately, and give Apple the chance to write drivers.
• Apple isn't against writing Windows software/drivers - Boot Camp has existed since early on in the Intel timeframe, iTunes for Windows has existed longer than that, QuickTime for Windows since the early '90s. Apple has been writing Windows software almost since the beginning of Windows.

My prediction: This *WILL* happen, because Microsoft wants to sell Windows to Apple users. As for timeframe? I'd wild-ass-guess predict sometime this Summer Microsoft/Apple will come out with an "official prerelease version" (Microsoft will say it's all them, Apple won't claim any part of it yet,) with tons of caveats and warnings, and terrible performance. Then in fall, Apple will publicly give it their blessing and release Boot Camp drivers, and Microsoft will release the commercial/retail version.

You are talking about natively bootable Windows. The likelihood of that happening - ever - is slim to none. Bootcamp on Intel Macs was possible because Apple was using standard hardware with available Windows drivers, and adding support for Apple-specific sauce was a low-effort investment. It's one thing to write a rudimentary Touch Bar driver, and an entirely different thing to write and support high-quality DX11, DX12, Vulkan, OpenGL and OpenCL GPU drivers — all of which are necessary to have a useful Windows system. Even more, Corellium's work on supporting Linux for M1 Macs shows how much custom behavior these machines have... they need extensive kernel patches and modifications. If you have an architecture that uses certain features in a non-standard way, you can't just fix it with a driver.

So no, I don't see any native Windows for ARM Macs. Virtualization is a much more feasible path forward. All the low-level stuff is handled by the host OS anyway and the burden of implementing GPU drivers is delegated to the VM software developer. Not to mention that it's much simpler to write a DX12 driver on top of Metal (which is what Parallels does) than to implement it on the "bare metal". And the performance should be very good still, almost as good as running stuff natively. Virtualization overhead is very low nowadays.

Th only think I wish is that Apple exposes their unique technology such as per-core toggleable memory model so that Microsoft can use it in their x86 emulator as well. This would massively speed up x86 apps and ensure their correct execution.

 

[theSeb]

I doubt it will ever come unless Intel/AMD move entirely away from x86 to ARM. There is almost no chance Apple and Microsoft agree to bring Windows to the Mac.

We're back in the PPC period where Macs will run Mac OS and maybe emulate Windows in some manner, but it won't be at native speed. The days of dual booting are over for the foreseeable future.

Why? MS and Apple have a very good working relationship and that has been the case for many years now with MS treating its MacOs and iOS applications as first class citizens. MS is making moves to get Windows and all of the existing applications to run on an ARM architecture in a fairly aggressive way. I can run Visual Studio (windows version) using Parallels preview. I can only imagine this situation getting better and not worse.

The likelihood of booting Windows, as others have mentioned, is very slim though. Apple will have the numbers on bootcamp users. Clearly the numbers were not large and virtualisation technology is only likely to get better.