M1 Virtualization: UTM vs Parallels?

[deconstruct60]

The other day Microsoft acknowledged that they're basically stopping work on "Windows X", but then never really mentioned what's coming down the pipeline. I'm still thinking both Apple & Microsoft have something up their proverbial sleeves this summer for WWDC2021 and macOS 12.

There was no “Windows X“ but there was a “Windows 10X” . It died in part because Windows11 came along .

Windows 10x shutdown in May 2021

Microsoft reportedly shelves Windows 10X, its Chrome OS competitor

Another effort to simplify Windows ends in failure.

www.theverge.com

Windows 11SE. Launches in Nov 2021

Microsoft announces Windows 11 SE, a new Chrome OS competitor

Microsoft takes on Chromebooks again.

www.theverge.com

Windows 11 as a whole tosses lost of legacy , ‘boat anchor’ baggage . That is a better foundation starting point for a ChromeOS competitor . The other better starting point is that only selling this to schools and companies via targeted laptops ( not general market , race to the bottom systems ) . will there be an 11SE-on-Arm edition at some point ? Probably yes. However probably not in 2022.

First Windows 11 on Arm laptops arrive with Microsoft's Pluton chip. Here's why it matters

Lenovo's ThinkPad X13s is the first Windows on Arm PC to come with Microsoft's Pluton security processor.

www.zdnet.com

Then Qualcomm 8cx gen 3 isn’t aimed at max affordable laptops. And scoops and orgs focus on super afford syste are also usually trailing edge on at least some software also. Windows 11 on Arm need to get farther down adoption curve before a SE edition has more traction . Microsoft has a plan … just not a quick one.

Windows 11 is coming down pipeline for Microsoft and Apple is relatively little to enable that specific piece of software along . Microsoft has their hands full with managing the W11 transition . It makes little sense to be running off chasing Macs when Apple is putting as little effort as possible into helping them along . For too many other sysytem vendors who do want to put in work to grow the Windows ecosystem .

 

[gank41]

There was no “Windows X“ but there was a “Windows 10X” . It died in part because Windows11 came along .

Windows 10x shutdown in May 2021

Right, the post of mine you quoted was from May of 2021. Windows 10X is what it was called, and then they just went with 11 instead.

 

[deconstruct60]

Right, the post of mine you quoted was from May of 2021. Windows 10X is what it was called, and then they just went with 11 instead.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for any ‘Microsoft Windows team is our best buddies’ announcements at WWDC 2022 anymore than they did at WWDC 2021. Maybe some general augments to the required shared core Apple virtualization framework and/or some better hardware virtualization features in next gen M-series . But neither Apple nor Microsoft has needEd Windows on Mac sales to move large volume of product .

 

[Heartex]

Want to ask a probably dumb question but I have a 32 bit intel window app that will not work on M1 macbook parallel with window 11. Anyway if a did a VM with older OS say Maverick or something like that. Would it work on 32 bit intel window app in parallel with window 10 in that VM? Trying everything possible to get this app on my laptop but it is just probably not going to happen.

 

[gank41]

I wouldn’t hold my breath for any ‘Microsoft Windows team is our best buddies’ announcements at WWDC 2022 anymore than they did at WWDC 2021. Maybe some general augments to the required shared core Apple virtualization framework and/or some better hardware virtualization features in next gen M-series . But neither Apple nor Microsoft has needEd Windows on Mac sales to move large volume of product .

Right... Again, that post of mine that you quotes is almost a year old.

 

[bobcomer]

Want to ask a probably dumb question but I have a 32 bit intel window app that will not work on M1 macbook parallel with window 11. Anyway if a did a VM with older OS say Maverick or something like that. Would it work on 32 bit intel window app in parallel with window 10 in that VM? Trying everything possible to get this app on my laptop but it is just probably not going to happen.

You can't run Maverick in a VM in Parallels. You only possible chance is to run a Windows x86 VM in UTM and being very patient.

 

[crashnburn]

You can't run Maverick in a VM in Parallels. You only possible chance is to run a Windows x86 VM in UTM and being very patient.

Goals. Would like to run Win 8.1 x64 in it.

 

[bobcomer]

Goals. Would like to run Win 8.1 x64 in it.

It will be able to run it, but it's not real stable. I've had several lockups and haven't figured out why yet.

 

[haralds]

For highest performance Windows on M1 the only choice is Windows 11 ARM64 with Parallels, which maps DirectX to Metal. I find the Windows x86/x64 translator works quite well.
UTM x86 translation is only god for a demo, too slow for real use.
Crossover works with some stuff, but I find Parallels to be more reliable with higher levels of functionality.

I use it for Windows development work.

 

[JMacHack]

For highest performance Windows on M1 the only choice is Windows 11 ARM64 with Parallels, which maps DirectX to Metal. I find the Windows x86/x64 translator works quite well.
UTM x86 translation is only god for a demo, too slow for real use.
Crossover works with some stuff, but I find Parallels to be more reliable with higher levels of functionality.

I use it for Windows development work.

I was putzing around with Parallels and Windows 11 for ***** and giggles and was impressed by the performance.

I booted up Steam and started a windows only game that I hadn’t touched in awhile (Automation: the car company tycoon game, I recommend it for car guys!) and was genuinely impressed with the smoothness running on low/med settings.

 

[Darkseth]

For highest performance Windows on M1 the only choice is Windows 11 ARM64 with Parallels, which maps DirectX to Metal. I find the Windows x86/x64 translator works quite well.
UTM x86 translation is only god for a demo, too slow for real use.
Crossover works with some stuff, but I find Parallels to be more reliable with higher levels of functionality.

I use it for Windows development work.

i can agree. Tried UTM a while ago, couldn't get it to work at all, idk why.

Parallels on the other hand... Works like pure perfection. (M1 Macbook Pro 13,3", late 2020)
Some SAP S/4 Hana Application, several Business Intelligence Applications like Microsoft Visual Studio SSDT, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, BI Modeller (which doesn't start on my Windows Machine, but works like a Charm in Parallels with emulation on top of virtualisation)..
On these type of Applications i notice zero Performance issues, so i have no idea how much of a Performance hit there is.
But even inside the VM the M1 stays pretty efficient. Battery doesn't want to drop at all. Even inside Windows 11 ARM (still insider preview from last Year), the batterylife and efficiency is FAR beyond anything a Windows Laptop can do.

Even in mid 2022 i'd say: Use Parallels, and don't look any further, it's by far the best VM on M1 based Macs.
I just wish, there were more Linux distributions.

@Heartex Did you try using Windows 11 compatibility mode? You can set the compatibility to Windows 10, 8 or 7, and be lucky. Had to do that with 1 Application, then the installer went through.

 

[thedocbwarren]

i can agree. Tried UTM a while ago, couldn't get it to work at all, idk why.

Parallels on the other hand... Works like pure perfection. (M1 Macbook Pro 13,3", late 2020)
Some SAP S/4 Hana Application, several Business Intelligence Applications like Microsoft Visual Studio SSDT, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, BI Modeller (which doesn't start on my Windows Machine, but works like a Charm in Parallels with emulation on top of virtualisation)..
On these type of Applications i notice zero Performance issues, so i have no idea how much of a Performance hit there is.
But even inside the VM the M1 stays pretty efficient. Battery doesn't want to drop at all. Even inside Windows 11 ARM (still insider preview from last Year), the batterylife and efficiency is FAR beyond anything a Windows Laptop can do.

Even in mid 2022 i'd say: Use Parallels, and don't look any further, it's by far the best VM on M1 based Macs.
I just wish, there were more Linux distributions.

@Heartex Did you try using Windows 11 compatibility mode? You can set the compatibility to Windows 10, 8 or 7, and be lucky. Had to do that with 1 Application, then the installer went through.

Agreed, I used UTM to emulate a bunch of things including an older ARM process for linux tests. They all work just very limited. If you want a proper VM use Parallels.

I did find emulating an Arm A57 with limited memory useful as I wrote some code that didn't work on my Nvidia Jetson . I assumed something my M1 could do that was not true for the Jetson due to missing ARM instructions. That part saved me with the emulated machine.

 

[crashnburn]

i can agree. Tried UTM a while ago, couldn't get it to work at all, idk why.

Parallels on the other hand... Works like pure perfection. (M1 Macbook Pro 13,3", late 2020)
Some SAP S/4 Hana Application, several Business Intelligence Applications like Microsoft Visual Studio SSDT, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, BI Modeller (which doesn't start on my Windows Machine, but works like a Charm in Parallels with emulation on top of virtualisation)..

On these type of Applications i notice zero Performance issues, so i have no idea how much of a Performance hit there is.
But even inside the VM the M1 stays pretty efficient. Battery doesn't want to drop at all.

All of the above running using non-ARM Win x86/x64 ? Thats what I really need.

Even inside Windows 11 ARM (still insider preview from last Year), the batterylife and efficiency is FAR beyond anything a Windows Laptop can do.

Even in mid 2022 i'd say: Use Parallels, and don't look any further, it's by far the best VM on M1 based Macs.
I just wish, there were more Linux distributions.

@Heartex Did you try using Windows 11 compatibility mode? You can set the compatibility to Windows 10, 8 or 7, and be lucky. Had to do that with 1 Application, then the installer went through.

 

[MrGunny94]

i can agree. Tried UTM a while ago, couldn't get it to work at all, idk why.

Parallels on the other hand... Works like pure perfection. (M1 Macbook Pro 13,3", late 2020)
Some SAP S/4 Hana Application, several Business Intelligence Applications like Microsoft Visual Studio SSDT, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, BI Modeller (which doesn't start on my Windows Machine, but works like a Charm in Parallels with emulation on top of virtualisation)..
On these type of Applications i notice zero Performance issues, so i have no idea how much of a Performance hit there is.
But even inside the VM the M1 stays pretty efficient. Battery doesn't want to drop at all. Even inside Windows 11 ARM (still insider preview from last Year), the batterylife and efficiency is FAR beyond anything a Windows Laptop can do.

Even in mid 2022 i'd say: Use Parallels, and don't look any further, it's by far the best VM on M1 based Macs.
I just wish, there were more Linux distributions.

@Heartex Did you try using Windows 11 compatibility mode? You can set the compatibility to Windows 10, 8 or 7, and be lucky. Had to do that with 1 Application, then the installer went through.

Always glad to hear a fellow SAP technical person using a Mac. I’m using HDB Studio without issues as well, same for GUi

 

[haralds]

BTW, UTM works fairly well with PPC emulation for Tiger. Sheepshaver is better for PPC OS 9.

 

[Darkseth]

All of the above running using non-ARM Win x86/x64 ? Thats what I really need.

No, afaik you can't run x86 Windows on M1 Macs, it HAS to be ARM-Windows.
But all those above ran inside ARM-Windows 11 (which was inside Parallels).
The Applications themself were x86 (not sure if 32bit or 64bit tho), and were emulated into ARM compatible Code from Microsoft's x86 -> ARM Emulator.

Which is impressive, that these Applications ran just perfectly fine for me with these 2 Layers.

 

[crashnburn]

No, afaik you can't run x86 Windows on M1 Macs, it HAS to be ARM-Windows.
But all those above ran inside ARM-Windows 11 (which was inside Parallels).
The Applications themself were x86 (not sure if 32bit or 64bit tho), and were emulated into ARM compatible Code from Microsoft's x86 -> ARM Emulator.

Which is impressive, that these Applications ran just perfectly fine for me with these 2 Layers.

Oh wow! So thats how its translating.

Dang! I was hoping to get comparison of running a Win x86/64 - Could you try with a Win 7 / 8 VM and share back its performance? - I need to run some old Windows stuff (not HANA) that might not run on the Win 10 ARM translation?

 

[Darkseth]

Can't, because there is no Win 7/8 for ARM, only x86. Parallels won't be able to run it.

Windows 10 ARM would be possible, but i don't think that would be any different than Windows 11. For one Application i needed compatibility Mode with Win 7 i believe, then it installed and ran.

If that Application you need is accessable, i could try installing it

 

[gank41]

All of the above running using non-ARM Win x86/x64 ? Thats what I really need.

I currently have a VM of Win2000 & WinXP (both are x86 OS'es) running just fine on my late 2020 M1 MBP.

From UTM's page:
"x64 images are recommended for Intel Macs but can also run on Apple Silicon and iOS at reduced speeds."

...and although I was able to get Win10 & Win11 running in UTM, I just prefer using the ARM instance in Parallels instead due to much greater performance. I had Win7 running in UTM, too, but I removed it to save space since I don't really need it.

Their Gallery page used to have a template for Win8 & I think even Win8.1, too. But I'm not seeing it now.

Gallery

Virtual machines for Mac

mac.getutm.app

Again, to those that are saying Apple Silicon Macs will not be able to run their Intel VMs from Parallels, THAT is correct. Parallels won't support it, it seems, at all. But you CAN build a new "Intel" based VM on an Apple Silicon Mac in UTM, but it simply will not be the same setup experience as with Parallels, when it does basically everything for you. There's plenty of documentation online how to do this.

 

[Darkseth]

Ah yea, UTM indeed supports non-ARM images.

I was refering to Parallels only, since i only use that.
I couldn't get UTM to work properly, not sure why.

 

[gank41]

Ah yea, UTM indeed supports non-ARM images.

I was refering to Parallels only, since i only use that.
I couldn't get UTM to work properly, not sure why.

You could probably use the template for the Win7 install but with your Win8.1 ISO. The two VMs I've got now were also difficult to get going, but that was mainly because I forgot how crappy Win2k is lol

Parallels is for sure the better app, though.

 

[crashnburn]

I currently have a VM of Win2000 & WinXP (both are x86 OS'es) running just fine on my late 2020 M1 MBP.

View attachment 2011190


From UTM's page:
"x64 images are recommended for Intel Macs but can also run on Apple Silicon and iOS at reduced speeds."

...and although I was able to get Win10 & Win11 running in UTM, I just prefer using the ARM instance in Parallels instead due to much greater performance. I had Win7 running in UTM, too, but I removed it to save space since I don't really need it.

Their Gallery page used to have a template for Win8 & I think even Win8.1, too. But I'm not seeing it now.

Gallery

Virtual machines for Mac

mac.getutm.app

Again, to those that are saying Apple Silicon Macs will not be able to run their Intel VMs from Parallels, THAT is correct. Parallels won't support it, it seems, at all.

But you CAN build a new "Intel" based VM on an Apple Silicon Mac in UTM, but it simply will not be the same setup experience as with Parallels, when it does basically everything for you.

There's plenty of documentation online how to do this.

1. Muchos Gracias for sharing the link and details.
2. I dont mind reduced speeds as long as usable at "speeds" one would get from machines of that ERA.
3. Understandable ARM would run faster than Translation from x64

4. Same link used to have Win 8 & 8.1 - Why remove it?
(Can you recall ballpark when this was Month/ Year - I'll try to check Wayback or other Archives for it).

5. So I looked up documentation that seemed unreliable
- Can you point to some RELIABLE ones you used/ recommend? I'll look at them as reliable reference.

As I will have limited Window to "try them on my cousins M1"

Ah yea, UTM indeed supports non-ARM images.

I was refering to Parallels only, since i only use that.
I couldn't get UTM to work properly, not sure why.

That kinda go back ability is what I need..

You could probably use the template for the Win7 install but with your Win8.1 ISO. The two VMs I've got now were also difficult to get going, but that was mainly because I forgot how crappy Win2k is lol

Parallels is for sure the better app, though.

I am hoping to.. hopefully without trouble.
Cmon I loved Win2k - It was ROCK SOLID, once it was working - Win NT 5 SP6 was even more so (once settled).

 

[gank41]

1. Muchos Gracias for sharing the link and details.
2. I dont mind reduced speeds as long as usable at "speeds" one would get from machines of that ERA.
3. Understandable ARM would run faster than Translation from x64

4. Same link used to have Win 8 & 8.1 - Why remove it?
(Can you recall ballpark when this was Month/ Year - I'll try to check Wayback or other Archives for it).

5. So I looked up documentation that seemed unreliable
- Can you point to some RELIABLE ones you used/ recommend? I'll look at them as reliable reference.

As I will have limited Window to "try them on my cousins M1"

That kinda go back ability is what I need..


I am hoping to.. hopefully without trouble.
Cmon I loved Win2k - It was ROCK SOLID, once it was working - Win NT 5 SP6 was even more so (once settled).

I would think you'd be able to use the Windows 7 UTM template for Windows 8 or 8.1, but TBH, I had to do a lot of tweaking to get things working. I honestly am not sure how I managed to do it, it took forever to get internet working on my Win2k VM. Windows XP works well, too, I just don't have use for UTM anymore now that I've also got a 2018 Intel Mac mini along with my M1 MBP. So I'm back to mainly using Parallels for everything.

BUT, having said all of that, Win11 on ARM is amazing and what I wish I'd always have had while I've ever had to use Windows ever. And I'm dating myself by going back to the days of physically walking around to a bunch of desks setting up Windows NT. It'll be nice to go back thru some old Intel based VMs that I've kept stored away to see what else I can do now..

 

[crashnburn]

4. Same link used to have Win 8 & 8.1 - Why remove it?
(Can you recall ballpark when this was Month/ Year - I'll try to check Wayback or other Archives for it).

5. So I looked up documentation that seemed unreliable
- Can you point to some RELIABLE ones you used/ recommend? I'll look at them as reliable reference.

6. As I will have limited Window to "try them on my cousins M1"

Any pointers on the above? Any hints will help.
4. ?
5. ?

I would think you'd be able to use the Windows 7 UTM template for Windows 8 or 8.1,

6. As I mentioned - not my machine so I'll have to fine tune my pre-trial prep/ homework before hand to get hands on his new M1

but TBH, I had to do a lot of tweaking to get things working. I honestly am not sure how I managed to do it, it took forever to get internet working on my Win2k VM. Windows XP works well, too,

I can imagine How about Win 98 SE

 

[gank41]

I went thru and updated my Windows XP and Windows 2000 VM's in UTM using legacyupdate.net and other than having some issues with the Win2k graphics drivers, everything is going smoothly...
This is on my 2020 M1 MBP