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Running Windows on the new M1 Chip?
- Thread starter fab5freddy
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Because the M1 doesn't run x86. The operating system is written in one or more languages and probably targets a variety of hardware platforms. Their compiler takes the source code and compiles it for the target architecture and it runs on that architecture. The M1 runs arm instructions, not x86 instructions.
Your intentionally missing the point. Apple are saying it is up to Microsoft if they want to build an ARM version of Windows that works on the M1. What I am saying is that Apple have all the information and expertise to build an x86 port that would work on the M1 so M1 users could be able to install Windows via an x86 port as a stop gap in waiting on Microsoft to build a native ARM version. Other companies are building x86 emulators that will work on the M1 so users can install windows on their machines. Apple have all the expertise to build one themselves but they didn't, knowing full well there are mac owners out there who need dual OS on their macs.
Look at the threads in the forum, M1 owners are asking about Windows and people are pointing them to Crossover and Parallel's. With Apple having to transition from powerpc to Intel and then from Intel to ARM, they have everything they need to do what Crossover and Parallel's is trying to do but they didn't and I am asking why?
I am not intentionally missing any point. I am trying to answer your question. Perhaps you need to phrase it more clearly.
Microsoft owns the source code for Windows, so Apple is correct. It is up to Microsoft if they want to build Windows on Apple Silicon.
I'm sure that Apple is competent at porting large software products but the down own Windows nor do they have the source code to Windows. Microsoft would have to do the port or maybe pay Apple to do the port given Apple's expertise on the hardware platform. But that again would be up to Microsoft.
Other companies may be building emulators but that's not the same thing as porting the operating system. The work to run an emulated program is not the same as that of running an emulated or translated or recompiled operating system.
People can run individual programs using Crossover. I run Windows programs on macOS/Intel using Crossover. No big deal, it's just a program. An operating system is completely different.
It's not clear to me what you want. A virtual machine. Windows on Apple Silicon. The ability to run Windows x86 programs on macOS/AS?
Apple doesn't have access to Microsoft's source code. So Apple can't port Windows.
Only Microsoft can port Windows.
Microsoft already has ARM64 versions of Windows 10, the same basic instruction set Apple Silicon/M1 uses. Sure, it would take some tweaking to run at full speed on Apple Silicon Macs, but the groundwork is already there. Apple would need to write the drivers for their custom hardware (graphics chip, etc,) but if Microsoft approached Apple and said "We'd like to port Windows to Apple Silicon" I bet Apple would do it.
Parallels and Crossover are *NOT* the same thing as Rosetta. Not even close.
Parallels and Crossover don't do any "code translation" - they pass through the raw Intel code to the host operating system to run on the host CPU. They present a "fake whole computer" to their "guest operating system". You run Windows, Linux, another copy of macOS, whatever, inside the "fake computer". But this fake computer is the same architecture as the host operating system. They're both Intel guest operating systems passing Intel code to an Intel host operating system. Crossover pretends to be Windows itself instead of a whole fake computer, but it's the same basic idea. It's a "computer in a bottle" running inside your main operating system.
Rosetta (the original, to run PowerPC code on Intel) and Rosetta 2 (to "translate" Intel code to ARM at install/first-run time,) translate code, without doing any "fake whole computer" aspects - the application you're running knows it's running on macOS Big Sur (or Mac OS X Tiger through Snow Leopard for the original Rosetta,) it can access the USB ports directly, the video card directly, everything. It just thinks it's running on the older CPU - PowerPC for Rosetta, Intel for Rosetta 2. Apple's macOS-layer code handles the translation.
Crossover has the benefit that because it is far more limited in scope (a single application inside a "fake single-application Windows") apparently Rosetta can handle that translation.
Rosetta 2 can't handle Parallels because the Intel copy of Windows inside Parallels has to be able to run any arbitrary Intel code at any time. Rosetta 2 can't just analyze all the possible code and produce all he possible Apple Silicon code - that would be an original-Rosetta-style on-demand emulator at that point, which Apple specifically avoided doing for performance reasons.
So Parallels will have to write their own Intel emulator.
*OR*
If Microsoft does port Windows to Apple Silicon - Windows would be running "natively", so Parallels wouldn't have to do the emulation, and you could run Windows 10/ARM inside Parallels. And Windows 10 ARM has its own Intel emulator to run Windows Intel code. So if Microsoft does port Windows, you'd be able to run Intel Windows apps not by emulating Intel Windows - but by running ARM Windows and using Windows' own emulation.
If they do not emulate x64 then they don't have a product. The proportion of customers who give a crap about running ARM Linux or Windows ARM (with no current licensing or worthwhile apps) is tiny. By "Everyone" do you mean you?
Porting "just" a hypervisor to a new CPU architecture should not be taking this much time. They are doing something more.
Given how much more resource efficient Windows has become (since Windows 10) and how fast even these base level M1 chips are, it's certainly doable. My guess is they will take a dual approach - emulation for x64 and virtualisation for ARM.
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I think Apple is in the business of selling Macs and iPhones and iTunes etc, it is not in the business of selling PCs running Windows.
It so happens that for many years, Macs were using the same processors as Windows PCs so Apple provided tools (boot loader and drivers) to run Windows on them since it was a small effort and it increased the user base.
If they feel that running iPad apps on Apple Silicon is not enough to keep their user base, I am sure they will consider ways to make Windows run on the new Macs. That's only if there won't already be a non-Apple solution.
What I am saying is that it's way lower on the priority list than you might believe.
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Nahh, OS X wasn't re-written. It was probably all Objective-C code, which was just compiled for PPC, x64, or now ARM. If Microsoft's efforts are anything to go by, it's about as difficult as checking a checkbox.
Apple provided the tools and supporting documentation to transition from x86-64 to ARM code. It's on the developer of the application, not Apple, to recompile the application for ARM. In this case, that means that it's on Microsoft, not Apple, to recompile Windows for ARM.
If you need to run Windows, get a Windows machine. Apple never was in the business of making a box that ran Windows for the sake of running Windows. They gave us Bootcamp because it was a way to entice otherwise Windows zealots to give the Mac platform a go. That clearly didn't pan out for them. If Microsoft wants to make Windows work on a Mac, all the power to them... but they've never made an effort to do so. The only thing they support on a Mac is Office.
and Microsoft Edge and Visual Studio Code and Microsoft Teams and ...
I'm pretty sure that there would be build and compiler issues. I think that Windows is mainly written in C/C++ but probably uses other compilers as well. Apple probably builds on X-Code so the incompatibilities between the build environments would have to be resolved. There may also be some secret sauce that Apple has in the M1 chip that accounts for some of the great Virtual Memory performance that Windows wouldn't have access to with specialized programming or access to special libraries.
And you completely lost mobility, which is today's baseline way of _doing IT_.
BTW, I wonder why no one has yet made a demo about running Windows 10 (x86) in QEMU on M1... People run Windows 98 in a Raspberry PI 4 on youtube, why not trying M1, what's the catch?
The M1's been publicly available for how many days now?
IMO, VMware/Parallels stand to lose a good amount of R&D capital if they bring a M1 x64 emulator to market and then Microsoft releases an ARM version of Windows to the public that can "Rosetta" x64 applications.
Ill do it, if no one has done it by then.. I just don't have my M1 Mini yet.. Its going be a few weeks though. Still waiting on it to get shipped.
If you were a real-life friend/acquaintance I would bet you $100 that neither VMWare nor Parallels comes out with an x86 local emulation system in the next 2 years. No way VMWare does it, and Parallels is going to the cloud.
But since we are just bits/bytes talking at each other I will skip it, but know that you are free to come back and prove me wrong if they do do it.
Not at the moment. Stay tuned though. Odds are decent that we'll see SOMETHING in the next year or two.
Parallels and VMware won't do x86 emulation on Apple Silicon. They've pretty much stated as much and Apple has pretty much stated that's what will be allowed. Not to say that we won't see an emulator of some sort down the road. But I wouldn't bank on it being from either of them.
If you buy used, maybe. Otherwise, any *NEW* Windows computer priced under $600 is usually total garbage.
Looks like you CAN run Windows on the new M1 Macbooks :
M1 Macs can now run Windows apps and games through CrossOver 20 - 9to5Mac
We already know that the new Macs with M1 chip can run both Intel and ARM apps made for macOS...9to5mac.com
That's not Windows running on M1 Macs. That's Windows apps running on M1 Macs. If that's all that matters to you, then cool. But if you want the OS itself, that's not your solution.
That's not how it works nor how it worked. Apple transitioned the Mac from PowerPC to Intel. Intel based Macs used and still use UEFI, which is a standard firmware. At the time, Windows wasn't yet using UEFI (and hadn't until Windows 7, but really not en masse until Windows 8), but was using its predecessor, Legacy BIOS. UEFI supports a Legacy BIOS mode called "CSM". Apple merely enabled CSM once they realized that people wanted to dual-boot Windows on their Macs. The only other thing they did was put out Windows drivers for the components that they used in their Intel Macs (which were largely similar to that of PCs). They did not re-write anything. Their OS wasn't even re-written as it was always written to be architecture independent (hence it existing on PowerPC, x86, and ARM). Boot Camp is just drive re-partitioning and Windows drivers. Nothing more.
For Windows 10 to work on Apple Silicon (which isn't even standard ARM), Microsoft would need to open licensing of its ARM64 version of Windows 10. That is the first step. That has always been the first step. Past that point, Apple could write drivers (as it's using mostly its own components now) for M1 Macs (or for the Apple Silicon macOS Hypervisor) for Windows 10 for ARM64, but they'd both need to collaborate on a proper bootloader as Apple isn't using a standard UEFI firmware on Apple Silicon Macs anymore. Microsoft would need to write a custom bootloader specifically for Apple systems. But nothing can happen until Microsoft allows Windows 10 for ARM64 to be licensed on non-OEM systems. Not a permanent show-stopper, but the ball is definitely in Microsoft's court.
x86 Operating systems won't work in Apple Silicon, which is an ARM64 derivative. That's not an Apple limitation. That's just how it works. Apple can't waive a magic wand and make x86 OSes boot on ARM64 computers, let alone Apple Silicon computers. Applications can be translated from x86-64 to ARM64 via Rosetta 2. Windows 10 applications can be translated to macOS via CrossOver, which uses WINE. But you can't do the same with whole operating systems. That's not how it works. Parallels is a hypervisor application. Parallels, like VMware, can make virtual machines of the same architecture as the host OS, but not translate from different architectures. Meaning, you can't run an x86-64 version of Windows 10, any version of macOS prior to Big Sur, or any x86/x86-64 based version of Linux on Parallels or VMware running on an Apple Silicon Mac the way you currently can on an Intel Mac. Similarly, x86 Macs won't be able to virtualize ARM64 based operating systems such as the Apple Silicon version of macOS Big Sur or Windows 10 for ARM64.
It's way more of a priority than YOU might believe. It's not show-stopping, as evidenced by the fact that Apple is selling M1 Macs without the ability to run any version of Windows natively or even virtualized for the first time in nearly fifteen years. But there's definitely many businesses that rely on the ability to run Windows on their Mac and will probably be buying Intel Macs until Apple and Microsoft can figure out what to do in ARM-land.
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Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but my point still stands - I don't see the value in ARM only virtualisation and neither would the vast majority of their core customer base.
Is Microsoft pushing hard enough into ARM that they will release a licensable ARM version which includes x64 binary translation? Either way, these companies cannot rely on that.
You are right though, Fusion is in tiny part of VMWare's revenue, it all comes from enterprise vSphere. So what does Parallels do then? Allow local ARM virtualisation and then also uses the software as a client for x64 Windows virtualisation running remotely?
macOS 11 now includes a virtualisation framework so VMWare and Parallels might be taking so long to release because they are also making use of that. Apple has almost certainly made use of the BSD bhyve hypervisor code to do this. Why reinvent the wheel and the BSD license is permissive enough that they can do it.
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Stepping away from technical for a minute. Apple’s new machines are quite incredible: from performance to battery life, to iOS apps. I’d hazard a guess that the bulk of the computing market requires computers for tasks that either a basic PC or a Mac can comfortably perform. These new Macs will therefore attract many more Windows users, offering what they do.
How are the other hardware market participants going to compete? They’re going to have to seriously consider ARM as well (it seems AMD and Intel can’t deliver?). What OS do these competing companies run? Windows. My feeling is therefore the following. Likely, an even bigger reason for MS to have an ARM version of the Windows OS is to be able to provide these competing hardware makers with an ARM-capable OS.
So, if an Windows ARM version would be compatible with multiple ARM processor types, it’s not a question of if MS does the work on ARM Windows, it’s when.
In my view we‘re lucky, we’re witnessing a really exciting transition in IT...
How are the other hardware market participants going to compete? They’re going to have to seriously consider ARM as well (it seems AMD and Intel can’t deliver?). What OS do these competing companies run? Windows. My feeling is therefore the following. Likely, an even bigger reason for MS to have an ARM version of the Windows OS is to be able to provide these competing hardware makers with an ARM-capable OS.
So, if an Windows ARM version would be compatible with multiple ARM processor types, it’s not a question of if MS does the work on ARM Windows, it’s when.
In my view we‘re lucky, we’re witnessing a really exciting transition in IT...
Parallels has stated that they are going to try to do it. But they are also very interested in the WoA work as well. I believe that’s about performance. WoA would run circles around emulation of x86.
Unless the price of M1 machines drops dramatically, Intel and AMD have absolutely nothing to worry about because the only people who are going to purchase M1 machines at the current prices they are, are existing mac owners.
I look for value for money and I do not see it with the M1 machines compared to what you can get from Intel and AMD machines for the same price or lower price. I went onto Apples website to checking the pricing of the new M1 13inch mac pro, 16GB with 1TB of hard disk space and it came to $1899. I then looked around on the net for competing laptops of very similar specs or ones that had very close hardware specs but with a bigger screen and I found at least over 70 Intel and AMD laptops that all offer more than what the M1 has to offer. They were all dedicated gaming laptops that had either Nvidia's 1660 Ti or RTX 2070. Many had 1080p webcams and were also capable of handling VR devices.
If I selected 13inch screen only, nearly every machine in it's class came under $1200 and again that is with a 1080p webcam, a 1660 Ti GPU and capable of handling VR.
Now if someone said 'in front of you is the latest Apple M1 and next to it is it's competing equivalent in price AMD and Intel machine' and they run off the specs and what each machine is capable of doing, a huge majority of people would buy the Intel or AMD because for the price, they offer so so much more.
When Apple moved to Intel CPU's, it did not dent the Windows market and the same will happen with the M1's. The M1's are showing how good they are BUT you give people $1800, take them to a dedicated computer store where they are selling both M1 macs and Intel and AMD laptops (hypothetical at the moment because I think only Apple store is selling the M1's), the majority of people will spend that $1800 on a gaming laptop. That is the real world we live in and people in this forum need to understand that. As I said, the M1's are good, they are proving just how good they are BUT they will not put a dent into Intel or AMD
You are correct that almost all of the usage of both those products is to run windows in a VM on the Mac.
I don’t believe that they will be be released until they have a solution to run windows.
We saw Parallels running at WWDC . It looks mostly done. But they still don’t have a solution for windows that they feel is ready to ship.
What does one of the Intel and AMD laptops with equivalent battery life and performance cost?
I just built an i7-10700 system and the case has three fans and I put on an Arctic eSports Duo cooler (it's massive) and I could add another five case fans if I wanted even more cooling. I look at the M1 in a laptop with 18-20 hours of battery life, much faster single-core performance and about 15% less multi-core performance and I am blown away.
The ability to run Zoom conferences with no fan noise is a big plus in the age of WFH and SFH.
I would compare the MacBook Pro to other ultrabooks - that's a better comparison. I do expect Apple to come out with an M2 or M1X and am looking forward to double, triple and quadruple the compute power. In laptops.