I just got a M3 Max and I can’t use it

[bdog1234]

I am not sure if this is the right place for this or not but I am really bummed out. I have been using a 2019 MBP that I bought new and it has been great. There is some really niche proprietary software that I use daily for my work that only runs on windows. There are no alternatives to this software and probably less than 500 people in the world use it and the developers will not update it. They haven’t made any changes since 2015.

Anyway I have used this software on my 2019 MBP with windows running on fusion and it works great and has for years. I got my new M3 Max and this software will not run on it. I tried parallels and fusion and it will not work.

I am so disappointed and am at a loss on what to do. I have been using Mac since 2012 for everything except for a couple windows only programs. The data that this one program uses is getting bigger and bigger with time and I really need a newer faster computer but I think I already have the fastest intel MBP.

It seems my options are either stick with my old 2019 MBP or switch over to a windows laptop. I am not all excited about that. I use this one program 30-40 hours a week and am constantly copying and pasting info to and from it. I do everything aside from this program on the Mac side.

 

[Big Bad D]

I think you've answered your own question - if it works OK, continue using your old Intel 2019 MBP. Even if someone can suggest a workaround to get it working on M3 Max, is it not about time to come up with a plan B? Even if you buy a new Windows laptop are you sure you won't now or with future Windows upgrades have the same issue?

You don't describe the software or activity, but to be so reliant (30-40 hours a week) on a no longer supported software seems prone to inevitable failure. If you share what is the software and activity, I am sure that there will be some similar experience from MacRumors users to help identify potential up to date replacements?

 

[bdog1234]

The software is made by a company that makes some engineering type instruments that I use for work. The software interfaces with these instruments and processes the data they collect. The company is still in business and updates their instruments but their point of view is the software works so why change it.

The data processing part is pretty computer intensive. The last data set I did took about three hours to complete. If I could get this running on a faster computer it would greatly help me. Our current client wants reports delivered daily so I work all day collecting the data and then am up late at night processing the data.

 

[HDFan]

I tried parallels and fusion and it will not work.

How does it fail?

 

[MacGizmo]

GIVE US THE NAME OF THE SOFTWARE.

And B) just buy a $500-$600 Windows laptop to do that work. If you were running it acceptably on an Intel MacBook Pro, that means you were running it under emulation, which is notoriously lousy at processor-intensive tasks—so it's highly likely that the app isn't nearly as intensive as you think.

 

[Bigwaff]

I tried parallels and fusion and it will not work.

Your x86 Windows VM’s won’t run on Apple Silicon. You have to install the ARM version of Windows 11… and hope your old software is compatible.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Your x86 Windows VM’s won’t run on Apple Silicon. You have to install the ARM version of Windows 11… and hope your old software is compatible.

and if they haven't updated it since 2015 it won’t be. OP, you should have been told before buying that. If you‘re in AEC or ind. design, and still want to do it all on one single Mac, the 2019 mbp is the end of the line. Apple’s solution beyond that is, get a MS Surface and then decide if whatever budget you have left over goes into a second, more powerful workstation to do whatever the surface wont, or take a nice vacation somewhere sunny and warm this winter.

 

[bdog1234]

I am using windows 11 ARM. The old software is not compatible. I get windows 11 arm working fine on both fusion and parallels but this program will not even open.

The program is very processor intensive. It also takes a lot of ram. It is doing finite element analysis on large data sets. I have seen it run on fast windows desktops.

The name of the software doesn’t matter. People wouldn’t know it anyway. It is specifically made by this one small company and only works with their instruments and has no other purpose. It also isn’t cheap it cost around $12,000. I don’t want to put the name of it because I am highly dependent on the company that makes it for my livelihood and I don’t want them to see this and think I am bad mouthing their product or something.

 

[chrfr]

If you were running it acceptably on an Intel MacBook Pro, that means you were running it under emulation, which is notoriously lousy at processor-intensive tasks—so it's highly likely that the app isn't nearly as intensive as you think.

Virtualization and emulation are not the same thing; this would have been virtualized on the Intel Mac, which performs substantially better than emulation.

 

[bdog1234]

So if the 2019 MBP is the end of the line which it appears it is this is a major fork In the road for me. For one if my MBP craps out I can’t just go buy a new one, and with Apple switching to the silicon chips it won’t be long before they phase out support for the intel Macs. Who knows how much time I have left but I wont be able to use this computer forever.

When I am at work I am staring at my computer all day long. I don’t ever touch my phone. I answer all my text messages on my computer. I use notes extensively with employees providing me information via shared notes from their phones that I see on my computer. I have find my open all the time to see where people are on the job site.On the personal side I use photos extensively. I have spent countless hours organizing in excess of 100k family photos dating back to scanned in ones from the 90s. I use Final Cut Pro and Compressor a lot. I use an iPad and iPhone and really like how everything is synced between them and my laptop.

it seems there would be so much I would lose switching to windows. Having two computers doesn’t seem too feasible either. I have windows running full screen on my Mac and swipe to switch back and forth between it and my Mac desktop. I do this back and forth hundreds if not thousands of times a day.

 

[chrfr]

it seems there would be so much I would lose switching to windows. Having two computers doesn’t seem too feasible either. I have windows running full screen on my Mac and swipe to switch back and forth between it and my Mac desktop. I do this back and forth hundreds if not thousands of times a day.

In this case it seems you have 3 options:
1. Keep using the 2019 until you can't, and then review again when it fails to be usable for you.
2. Switch entirely to Windows.
3. Get a Windows computer but connect to it using Microsoft Remote Desktop from the Mac. This would still give you clipboard support and let you maintain access to the Mac apps you're currently using.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

How would you be 'bad mouthing' the company for looking into alternatives to run it on a Mac? That's just absurd.

I'm not sure why the software won't run in ARM Windows, that does seem strange. I too rely on some niche Windows x86 only software for my work (Sage Payroll) and I run it just fine in Parallels running Windows for ARM. I can't remember but there might be something you need to do for your Windows for ARM installations to enable x86 emulation, it's been a while since I set mine up.

Another alternative is to look into something like a Wine wrapper. Have a try with Whiskey (https://getwhisky.app/). It's designed for game porting as it uses Apple's new Game Porting Toolkit that's part of Sonoma. Maybe this might work for this app. Everything's worth a try!

If that doesn't work, there are ways to emulate Windows x86 on Macs but they're obviously slower e.g. QEMU.

If none of these options are working then you might need to look at some additional hardware. You could potentially get a super compact Windows laptop (or headless computer) and take it with you, connecting to it via remote desktop software. I have something like this setup for our office as we require an ID badge printing software that's Windows only. I have an Intel Mac Mini that runs VMWare Fusion which has a Windows 10 virtual machine running just this software. Doesn't have to be a Mac Mini, of course, but I like to be able to Screen Share to the main machine to manage the VM but it's set up so that anyone in the office can access the virtual machine through a VNC web based client. The ID badge printing software is designed to run on one PC but we wanted anyone in the office to be able to use it, which is why I came up with this workaround.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

 

[anshuvorty]

This is what you have to do:

• load the software on a x86_64 Windows 10 or 11 Pro computer
• download the Windows app from Testflight - https://aka.ms/macOSWindowsAppBeta on to your Apple Silicon Mac
• get the IP address of that Windows 10 or 11 Pro computer and put it into the Windows App, so that you can remote into that computer and use that software

 

[chrfr]

This is what you have to do:

• load the software on a x86_64 Windows 10 or 11 Pro computer
• download the Windows app from Testflight - https://aka.ms/macOSWindowsAppBeta on to your Apple Silicon Mac
• get the IP address of that Windows 10 or 11 Pro computer and put it into the Windows App, so that you can remote into that computer and use that software

That beta is not taking more users, but Microsoft Remote Desktop is available now and works fine.

‎Windows App

‎Windows App for Mac (previously named Microsoft Remote Desktop) is your gateway to securely connect to Windows including remote PCs and admin-provided virtual apps and desktops across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Dev Box and Remote Desktop Services. Embrace the simplicity of a unified...

apps.apple.com

 

[bdog1234]

Thanks the second computer with Remote Desktop is interesting and I may give it try. While not impossible the added complication is all of this all the work is mobile. I am sitting my truck with my laptop connected to the instrument with a long cable during the day and then working on the data in my motel room at night. I could certainly get a windows laptop and hook it to my MBP but it wouldn’t be as elegant as a windows desktop machine sitting in the corner of the office. And no I couldn’t have it in the office and network in as many of the places we work are in the middle of no where with absolutely no cell or internet service. I guess the only thing I need to check is that the 110 outlet in my truck can power two laptops. I know I have tripped the breaker on it several times trying to plug other things in while my laptop was connected.

 

[TracerAnalog]

I am not sure if this is the right place for this or not but I am really bummed out. I have been using a 2019 MBP that I bought new and it has been great. There is some really niche proprietary software that I use daily for my work that only runs on windows. There are no alternatives to this software and probably less than 500 people in the world use it and the developers will not update it. They haven’t made any changes since 2015.

Anyway I have used this software on my 2019 MBP with windows running on fusion and it works great and has for years. I got my new M3 Max and this software will not run on it. I tried parallels and fusion and it will not work.

I am so disappointed and am at a loss on what to do. I have been using Mac since 2012 for everything except for a couple windows only programs. The data that this one program uses is getting bigger and bigger with time and I really need a newer faster computer but I think I already have the fastest intel MBP.

It seems my options are either stick with my old 2019 MBP or switch over to a windows laptop. I am not all excited about that. I use this one program 30-40 hours a week and am constantly copying and pasting info to and from it. I do everything aside from this program on the Mac side.

Simple really. If that software is so crucial to you, you really should buy a Wintel machine…

 

[macdaddy43]

At this point, it sounds like if you rely that heavily on the software just buy a solid workstation PC with Windows on it. Sounds like it will save you a significant amount of time (and money) just by doing this. Use your Mac for personal use or anything else you may do at work.

Simply using a more modern PC, you should see significant improvement in processing times with the data you are referring to. Intel Macs - especially the one you are using - are notorious for overheating and throttling with any bit of workload. You'd be far better off getting a Thinkpad with a better cooling system or your best bet is to get a decently powered desktop, load it up with RAM and get half your work week back.

 

[winxmac]

I don't understand why some users do not research enough before complaining that what they purchased is useless or not up to their use case...

A software designed for x86 will not work on ARM architecture unless the software developer created multiple versions for multiple platforms... In the case of this software that you won't ever namedrop, if it is already the latest version but only designed for x86 Windows, you don't have much of a choice but to buy a more powerful Wintel computer...

 

[ArkSingularity]

If you were running it acceptably on an Intel MacBook Pro, that means you were running it under emulation, which is notoriously lousy at processor-intensive tasks—so it's highly likely that the app isn't nearly as intensive as you think.

That was virtualization, not emulation. Virtualization can generally run at near-native performance for CPU tasks (generally 90-95%), since there is no instruction translation required.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I don't understand why your software doesn't work on Windows for ARM with Microsoft's own x86 emulation. It's Microsoft's own version of Rosetta. As long as you're using Windows 11 ARM then it should work. The main thing that didn't work before was Visual Studio based stuff but that's now supported although you main need to do some manual workarounds for installed dependencies. My only guess would be if it's particularly old software that's only 16-bit as that's the only stuff that isn't supported. If that's the case then QEMU would likely be your best option as it's not going to be computationally intensive software anyway. I set this kind of thing up years ago for my father in law who still needed to use some old niche engineering software called Hevacomp. He had a perpetual licence for an old version that did everything he needed it to do.

 

[ArkSingularity]

I don't understand why your software doesn't work on Windows for ARM with Microsoft's own x86 emulation. It's Microsoft's own version of Rosetta. As long as you're using Windows 11 ARM then it should work. The main thing that didn't work before was Visual Studio based stuff but that's now supported although you main need to do some manual workarounds for installed dependencies. My only guess would be if it's particularly old software that's only 16-bit as that's the only stuff that isn't supported. If that's the case then QEMU would likely be your best option as it's not going to be computationally intensive software anyway. I set this kind of thing up years ago for my father in law who still needed to use some old niche engineering software called Hevacomp. He had a perpetual licence for an old version that did everything he needed it to do.

I've had apps that didn't run under it before. Never really looked into why, but Microsoft's translation layer definitely doesn't seem to be quite as stable as Apple's offerings.

 

[waw74]

another option might be sharing the mouse/keyboard/clipboard between 2 computers. can be done between windows and Mac. (linux too if you're feeling daring). Just need to be on the same network.
works similar to having 2 monitors on the same computer, but each monitor is running on it's own computer. Keyboard follows the mouse, so you just have to make sure the cursor is on the screen of the computer you want to control.

used to do this long ago with a program called synergy, in the pre-appleTV days, had a computer running a media center, could easily sit on the couch and control that PC from my laptop.

How to Control Multiple Computers With One Keyboard and Mouse

Want to control more than one computer simultaneously with the same keyboard and mouse? These software and hardware options can help.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Dragon M.]

I don't understand why some users do not research enough before complaining that what they purchased is useless or not up to their use case...

Because to most people, computers are just a tool, and their expertise is in other areas you know nothing about. The general public does not know the difference between x86, x86-64, and ARM, nor do I expect them to.

Plus, the OP would not have known whether or not it would have worked prior to testing it out. There was a non-zero probability the software would have worked. I have x64 finite element software (like OPs) running on an ARM Mac via Parallels -> Windows 11 Emulation. In theory it works, but with so many layers, it's slower than running natively on an Intel machine.

 

[heretiq]

I am using windows 11 ARM. The old software is not compatible. I get windows 11 arm working fine on both fusion and parallels but this program will not even open.

The program is very processor intensive. It also takes a lot of ram. It is doing finite element analysis on large data sets. I have seen it run on fast windows desktops.

The name of the software doesn’t matter. People wouldn’t know it anyway. It is specifically made by this one small company and only works with their instruments and has no other purpose. It also isn’t cheap it cost around $12,000. I don’t want to put the name of it because I am highly dependent on the company that makes it for my livelihood and I don’t want them to see this and think I am bad mouthing their product or something.

Have you opened a support ticket with Parallels or Fusion Support? If not I would give that a shot as those resources are very familiar with what works with their product and how to configure both VM and app for optimal operation. Good luck!

 

[Mr. Dee]

Some recommendations already offered are what I would consider.
You could ask your company to get you a Windows 365 subscription to run this. It will make using Windows on your new MacBook Pro seamless, you just swipe to it when you need to run that program.

The other option is to pick up a dirt cheap Windows laptop for $275 and install Windows 10 Pro or have your company upgrade it to Windows 10/11 Enterprise so you can use that program. It's inconvenient, but at least you want have to give up your new laptop.