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Why doesn't Apple Silicon support Windows on Arm if it supports Linux on Arm?

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izzy0242mr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
691
491
Not talking about the legality. Obviously Windows on Arm is a thing that people can download and install manually through the Insider program and people use that to virtualize Arm computers via Parallel Desktop.

But people have gotten Linux working fine on M1 computers. What's the actual technical reason that someone can't figure out a way to install Windows 10 or 11 on Arm in the same way? Surely it can't be that there are proprietary drivers required for M1 that Apple somehow developed *for* Linux, right? It would have no interest in doing that.

It just seems weird to me that there's not a physical way to get one unsupported OS (Windows on Arm) booting on M1 if another unsupported OS (Linux on Arm) works.
 
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roobarb!

roobarb!

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2009
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Apple Silicon is nothing more than a specialised ARM SoC, it'll run anything it's given. Linux works because people have put in the effort. Windows doesn't because Microsoft haven't.

The less flippant answer is that there's no incentive for Microsoft to put in the effort while the only platform which benefits is Mac. If Microsoft don't lead, developers won't follow. Software won't be reworked, the hardware won't be exploited to its fullest potential. Worst of all, if any of it is a bit iffy it could drive users to macOS. I mean, they've already paid for a Mac, so why not!

Until ARM or some other RISC platform becomes a significant force for general purpose computing, Microsoft will simply not bother as it doesn't improve Windows market share in an economically beneficial manner. There's no money in it, basically.
 
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izzy0242mr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
691
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roobarb! said:
Apple Silicon is nothing more than a specialised ARM SoC, it'll run anything it's given. Linux works because people have put in the effort. Windows doesn't because Microsoft haven't.
Click to expand...
So basically it's 100% up to Microsoft. But what exactly does that entail? We have Windows running on other ARM SoCs. Is it not possible to reverse engineeer those drivers for M1?
 
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AltecX

AltecX

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Oct 28, 2016
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izzy0242mr said:
So basically it's 100% up to Microsoft. But what exactly does that entail? We have Windows running on other ARM SoCs. Is it not possible to reverse engineeer those drivers for M1?
Click to expand...
Thats actually wrong. MS didn't do jack for Apple to make Bootcamp, that was all Apple. Its actually a mix of MS has to support the changes APPE made to its ARM chips and Apple then has to actually made an ARM bootcamp
 
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roobarb!

roobarb!

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Jul 30, 2009
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izzy0242mr said:
Is it not possible to reverse engineeer those drivers for M1?
Click to expand...
Doubt it would be worthwhile. What makes M1 and M2 special are all the ingredients in the sauce. The ARM CPUs are just one part, probably the easiest bit to support as they're the standardised element. Then there are the GPUs, neural engine, media cores; it's all this working together that gives you the performance. Not supporting certain elements would make for a poor end product.
 
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Gerdi

macrumors 6502
Apr 25, 2020
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MauiPa said:
Talk to Microsoft. Coalition for windows on ARM fairness!
Click to expand...

And what precisely are you expecting Microsoft to do? Windows runs under certain conditions - namely compliance to the ARMv8 architecture + GIC and HW abstraction in from of EFI/ACPI - which are for everyone the same. The drivers not covered by EFI are supposed to be contributed by the OEM.
The difference is Qualcomm has invested to fulfill all prerequisites including all drivers, Apple has not.

That having said, there is someone working to boot Windows on M1 here
 
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bobcomer

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May 18, 2015
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izzy0242mr said:
Not talking about the legality. Obviously Windows on Arm is a thing that people can download and install manually through the Insider program and people use that to virtualize Arm computers via Parallel Desktop.

But people have gotten Linux working fine on M1 computers. What's the actual technical reason that someone can't figure out a way to install Windows 10 or 11 on Arm in the same way? Surely it can't be that there are proprietary drivers required for M1 that Apple somehow developed *for* Linux, right? It would have no interest in doing that.

It just seems weird to me that there's not a physical way to get one unsupported OS (Windows on Arm) booting on M1 if another unsupported OS (Linux on Arm) works.
Click to expand...
The hardest part is the boot environment. When Apple used intel Mac's, they used a a fairly standard boot environment, but with Apple SoC, the boot environment is not the same. Someone would have to fix Windows to understand the new boot environment, and Apple would have to make some kind of Bootcamp and drivers to boot it natively. I really don't see the point anymore. If you need Windows, don't use a Mac, and vice versa. Or do like me and have both. :)

The Linux people did all the Linux adjustments for it to understand the platform...
 
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Gerdi

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Apr 25, 2020
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Jumpthesnark said:
I wonder if there's a Wintel-oriented site somewhere akin to MR that has a group of people who like Apple hardware and who have been wondering how to get their favorite OS working on Apple Silicon so they can use MBPs or Airs.
Click to expand...

Wondering is one thing, reverse engineering all the Apple HW, which is largely undocumented, is another.
 
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exoticSpice

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Jan 9, 2022
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Gerdi said:
And what precisely are you expecting Microsoft to do? Windows runs under certain conditions - namely compliance to the ARMv8 architecture + GIC and HW abstraction in from of EFI/ACPI - which are for everyone the same. The drivers not covered by EFI are supposed to be contributed by the OEM.
The difference is Qualcomm has invested to fulfill all prerequisites including all drivers, Apple has not.

That having said, there is someone working to boot Windows on M1 here
Click to expand...
Apple said it was up to Microsoft. Qualcomm has a deal with Microsoft
 
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Gerdi

macrumors 6502
Apr 25, 2020
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exoticSpice said:
Apple said it was up to Microsoft. Qualcomm has a deal with Microsoft
Click to expand...

The deal with Microsoft does not change the fact, that everything required to boot Windows is provided by Qualcomm. It is very clear what is required to boot Windows - and Windows does boot on many ARM platforms even non-Qualcomm platforms - because the required infrastructure has been provided by the OEMs.

This is because if Windows finds an EFI with ACPI - along with other system requirements formulated as part of ACPI - it will boot. It is pointless to ask Microsoft to also boot on non ACPI compliant platforms - the platform has to be made ACPI compliant. This has been done by the community for the Raspberry PI for instance.

And even if the platform is ACPI compliant, it just means, that Windows boots with a very barebone set of drivers. There will be no WiFi, Audio or GPU driver for instance.
 
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L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,674
izzy0242mr said:
But people have gotten Linux working fine on M1 computers. What's the actual technical reason that someone can't figure out a way to install Windows 10 or 11 on Arm in the same way? Surely it can't be that there are proprietary drivers required for M1 that Apple somehow developed *for* Linux, right? It would have no interest in doing that.
Click to expand...

Apple Silicon uses a lot of custom tech and protocols, it won’t run a regular OS developed for the “normal”’ ARM machine. Apple didn’t develop any drivers for Linux, it’s just that a bunch of Linux hackers with years of experience in reverse engineering Apple hardware (some of these people are security researchers specializing in iPhones) have written patches to Linux kernel to make it work on Apple Silicon. And it’s still not much more than a proof of concept.

Having official production Windows running is a completely different story. Someone - either Apple or Microsoft needs to write and support a bunch of non-trivial drivers and possibly kernel patches. Microsoft can’t really do it without documentation from Apple and Apple probably can’t do it without access to Windows kernel code. At any rate this kind of project will take ages and cost a fortune. Neither of the two companies are interested enough to justify the investment.
 
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MauiPa

macrumors 68040
Apr 18, 2018
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Gerdi said:
And what precisely are you expecting Microsoft to do? Windows runs under certain conditions - namely compliance to the ARMv8 architecture + GIC and HW abstraction in from of EFI/ACPI - which are for everyone the same. The drivers not covered by EFI are supposed to be contributed by the OEM.
The difference is Qualcomm has invested to fulfill all prerequisites including all drivers, Apple has not.

That having said, there is someone working to boot Windows on M1 here
Click to expand...
if you have been paying attention, it is a licensing issue, Microsoft won't license it, therefore there can be no development on it. some programmers have gotten it to run unofficially, so yah, Microsoft would have to license it.
 
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theorist9

macrumors 68040
May 28, 2015
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The other issue is that, even if Windows could run on AS, the Windows OS you'd be running would be Windows-for-ARM, not Windows-for-x86. And the number of apps that run natively on Windows-for-ARM is still limited. Thus many of your apps would have to run through an emulator.
 
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Malus120

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2002
696
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Aside from Microsoft's exclusivity deal with Qualcomm (already discussed) I think there are two other important factors at play here:

1. Apple's indifferent stance on Apple Silicon support for third-party operating systems:
Although Apple has been clear about it's desire to see other operating systems virtualized on AS, and has not stood in the way of them running on bare metal (see Asahi-Linux,) they are also not providing active support. The ability of other operating systems to run relies primarily on either on either reverse engineering (Asahi-Linux,) or a combination of general ARMv8 compatibility and virtualization.
For official Windows support Apple would likely need to be willing to provide a complete driver package for Apple Silicon Macs (most critically for the GPU but also for everything else.) At the very least they would need to shift their stance to a willingness to provide clear and open documentation on their hardware which they have not done yet. Expecting Microsoft to reverse engineer Apple Silicon to make it work on Windows is unrealistic in my opinion.

2. Windows on ARM and (more importantly) the "desktop" ARM ecosystem (outside of Apple Silicon) are not ready for prime time:
One IMHO under appreciated factor is that If Microsoft started officially supporting and selling windows on ARM, there is a very real risk that many manufacturers would release devices that are severely under powered for desktop computing, delivering a poor experience that would make windows look bad. Making matters even worse, certain ARM vendors such as Qualcomm are also known for their poor long term driver support.
Furthermore most consumers are not savvy enough to understand the difference between CPU architectures, and while the x86 emulation on Windows isn't bad, Microsoft would likely be inundated with support queries about why certain apps don't work correctly/run poorly.
At the end of the day Microsoft business is selling its operating system and its services. I think they (rightly) see official ARM support as too early for the majority of the consumer market, want to avoid the hassle of supporting the ARM ecosystem, and would prefer most manufacturers stick with x86 for the time being. I imagine they will continue to offer Windows on ARM experiences that they can control the quality of, or that they can offer plausible deniability for (virtualization)
 
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maternidad

macrumors regular
Mar 18, 2021
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People needed to modify Linux in order to enable its execution on M1 computers. Since Microsoft Windows is closed source, together perhaps with other reasons, similar modifications can not be made to run Windows on the M1.
 
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ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
I'm sure Microsoft would love to sell licenses to Mac users, but they got into exclusivity deal with Qualcomm.
 
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