At this point, honestly, this thread has become pretty amusing to read, so I can’t help but add a few more words.
Yes, Windows 11 can still run some very old Windows applications — but that only exists because Microsoft has carried an enormous amount of legacy baggage and paid a huge technical cost to do so. And even then, it only fulfills very specific, narrowly defined obligations. In real-world usage, those cases are actually quite rare.
Treating this as a serious argument for why an M5 Mac should be able to run Intel-based Photoshop plugins is a major conceptual misunderstanding — to the point where the difference between an application and a plugin isn’t even being recognized anymore.
Let’s think about this for a second. If a Windows 95–era plugin for a specific app depended on a 3dfx Voodoo card (ah, those beautifully naïve days), do you honestly expect Windows 11 to magically make that app work when it tries to access 3dfx hardware? Come on. This isn’t magic. Microsoft doesn’t guarantee that either.
Yes, Microsoft has invested heavily in backward compatibility, for many reasons — but it certainly isn’t out of pure goodwill. Some people earlier mentioned Microsoft’s long-term obligations in specific sectors, and that is one of the reasons. (That said, Apple isn’t exactly devoid of long lifecycle contracts either. And by the way, if we really want to talk about legendary lifecycle support, nobody beats IBM — it’s basically a living museum piece that still runs… and can still bite.)
Back to the Windows 95 + 3dfx example: the actual reality is that this falls outside Microsoft’s guarantees. And this is the part I want to correct — if you expect Apple to transition architectures while still offering backward compatibility, Apple has in fact done exactly that, and far more elegantly than you seem to realize. The answer is Rosetta.
Using a Windows 95 example to criticize Apple for not being “committed enough” when it comes to Photoshop plugins is simply a false analogy, and it really highlights a serious lack of basic IT understanding.
A more productive attitude — and a much better thread title — would be something like:
“Hi everyone, what’s the best way to run my specific Photoshop plugin on an Apple Silicon Mac?”
I’m fairly certain that approach would get you far more meaningful answers.
Oh — and Merry Christmas to everyone.
