Win11 VM

[Nermal]

I'm not sure how you got the idea that Microsoft's licensing terms haven't changed even a little bit since the 1990s.

From a processor architecture perspective, there have been no meaningful changes.

The Windows 11 licence is here. There is no mention of different architectures being treated differently. There are no mentions of Intel, AMD or Arm. There is a single mention of "such as" 32- and 64-bit, saying that you may not install both at the same time (and therefore it follows that you can't install the same copy of Windows on both an Intel and Arm machine at the same time; you would need a separate copy for your Arm machine).

If you can find something in there that forbids it, then please point it out and I'll stand corrected.

“Microsoft only licenses Windows 10 on ARM to OEMs,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. We asked Microsoft if it plans to change this policy to allow Windows 10 on ARM-based Macs, and the company says “we have nothing further to share at this time.”

This quote doesn't seem to mesh with the actual licence text, which is interesting!

 

[mr_roboto]

From a processor architecture perspective, there have been no meaningful changes.

The Windows 11 licence is here. There is no mention of different architectures being treated differently. There are no mentions of Intel, AMD or Arm. There is a single mention of "such as" 32- and 64-bit, saying that you may not install both at the same time (and therefore it follows that you can't install the same copy of Windows on both an Intel and Arm machine at the same time; you would need a separate copy for your Arm machine).

If you can find something in there that forbids it, then please point it out and I'll stand corrected.

I think you're coming at it from the wrong angle. You're looking for language about chips, but Microsoft isn't really concerned with that, at least not directly. This is the relevant clause, and it's right at the start of the agreement:

"Depending on how you obtained the Windows software, this is a license agreement between (i) you and the device manufacturer or software installer that distributes the software with your device; or (ii) you and Microsoft Corporation (or, based on where you live or, if a business, where your principal place of business is located, one of its affiliates) if you acquired the software from a retailer. Microsoft is the device manufacturer for devices produced by Microsoft or one of its affiliates, and Microsoft is the retailer if you acquired the software directly from Microsoft. If you are a volume license customer, use of this software is subject to your volume license agreement rather than this agreement."

So there's three ways to enter into a licensing agreement to legally use Windows: OEM, retail, and volume (the last requiring a different license agreement than this one). They're defined largely in terms of how you acquired Windows, and who paid.

If you don't acquire Windows through one of these defined paths, you don't have a license to use Windows. Since Microsoft only offers Windows on Arm through the OEM channel, not retail or volume, there is no way to parse the rest of the license agreement that makes it legal for us to use WoA in Parallels just because their download and activation processes are lax enough to allow it to work.

 

[Nermal]

Agreed... until the last sentence

Since Microsoft only offers Windows on Arm through the OEM channel, not retail or volume

Microsoft's list of licences doesn't include a "Windows on Arm" product; it's just Windows. Therefore, as I interpret it, if you buy Windows 11 at retail then you're licensed to use it. This is borne out by Arm using the same product keys as x86/x64; if they were different products then they'd require different keys.

With that said, it's clear that we have differing thoughts on this and it's interesting that Microsoft has come up with a document that can be read multiple ways. Personally I'm not even running Windows so my conscience is clear

 

[dylanlewis2000]

I am running windows 11 Edu Arm through parallels as I need access to our timetable software which is windows based. The office suite has also been installed for Publisher and a few other teaching apps. So far so good, battery life is good, I was using it for two hours doing various things and it used around 18% of the battery. This was using Wi-Fi and logged into a domain environment.

 

[Khurtana]

I am running windows 11 Edu Arm through parallels as I need access to our timetable software which is windows based. The office suite has also been installed for Publisher and a few other teaching apps. So far so good, battery life is good, I was using it for two hours doing various things and it used around 18% of the battery. This was using Wi-Fi and logged into a domain environment.

That’s actually really useful.
I have a MBP late 2014 version which I am replacing with an M1Max 10/32/16 32GB.
I intend to domain join the Win11 and run my special app on the windows VM.
As I see it the only thing I will have trouble with is Cisco AnyConnect.