However, last year, Microsoft said Windows 11 would not offer official support for M1-powered Apple computers.Īpple could also launch Boot Camp support for the same–chances of which, again, remain slim. The straightforward solution is for Microsoft to make Windows 11 available for all ARM variants. The ARM64 Windows kernel does not support the AIC (the overwhelming majority of ARM64 systems that run Windows use an interrupt controller standard called the Generic Interrupt Controller).Īlso, the Apple MMU supports both 16K and 4K pages, the IOMMU only supports 16K pages as far as we know, which presents challenges with hardware communicating with Windows. Also, since Apple moved away from x86 CPUs, it is even harder for developers to step in and provide those drivers.Īpple implements a non-standard interrupt controller on their SoCs, called the Apple Interrupt Controller (AIC), making it difficult to run Windows on M1 chip-powered Apple. Soon Virtual PC became the most popular way to run Windows on an Apple computer until 2006.Īpple doesn’t provide drivers for Windows. The 1996 Power Mac 4400 launched by Apple supported Windows as well.Ī year later, Connectix released Virtual PC letting users to run Windows within macOS and not have to reboot.

In 1994, Apple released a Macintosh with an Intel 80486 DX2/66 processor that allowed its users to run both its operating systems on a single computer.

Then, Microsoft had worked closely with Apple to create programmes for Apple’s PC. When Apple launched its Macintosh PCs in the 80s, Bill Gates had said Microsoft had more people working on the Mac than Apple. Microsoft and Apple share a very complicated relationship. Similar projects are in the pipeline as well. Your newsletter subscriptions are subject to AIM Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.Īlso, projects such as Asahi, the first Linux distribution that can be installed natively on Apple M1-based Apple computers, offers a silver lining.

Install windows on mac m1