Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

You can finally run Windows 11 natively on an Apple silicon Mac

Alex Blake
By

Apple and Microsoft may be eternal rivals, but that doesn’t mean they never work together. Yet Microsoft has never officially supported the idea of running Windows 11 on an Apple silicon Mac, leaving the practice in something of a gray area — until now.

Installing Windows on a Mac has been pretty straightforward over the years, but the introduction of Apple silicon chips in Apple’s Macs complicated matters a little. Sure, there were ways to do it, but without Microsoft’s official approval, they required workarounds.

Related Videos
The Parallels Desktop Mac app showing Windows running on a MacBook Pro.

Now, though, Microsoft has posted a support page explaining how you can pair up its own software with Apple hardware. Specifically, the guide gives the green light for Windows 11 to be run either using a Windows 365 Cloud PC or in a virtual machine like the Parallels Desktop app.

Previously, Microsoft had required computers to have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) in order to run Windows, which not all Macs have. Parallels solved this by creating a virtual TPM, but that’s no longer necessary. Instead, you can just run Parallels as normal and it will run Windows 11 without a hitch.

Years ago, this wouldn’t really have been a problem, as a Mac user could just fire up the Boot Camp app and get their computer to load into Windows. Boot Camp doesn’t work with Apple silicon Macs, though, leaving people to find alternative solutions.

The MacBook Pro on a wooden table.

One of those solutions was Parallels. This app runs Windows inside its own container on the Mac desktop, which bypasses the need to separately boot into Microsoft’s operating system.

Microsoft’s support page appears to be aimed at business users, as it suggests running Parallels Desktop alongside a copy of Windows 11 Pro or Windows 11 Enterprise. That’s unsurprising, as a major use case of virtualization software is for businesses that have a fleet of computers and need to test software on a different operating system.

Whether you’re a business user or simply want to run Windows 11 on your Mac without relying on any workarounds, this shift from Microsoft will likely be a welcome one. It just goes to show that Apple and Microsoft can play nice together when they want to.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Dell’s first Windows 11 ARM laptop is priced like a Chromebook
A woman using a Dell Inspiron 14 laptop.

Dell just launched a new Inspiron 14 laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, and it's priced like a Chromebook, costing only $500. The advantage of using a Qualcomm chip is the long battery life, and Dell claims the Inspiron 14 can last for 16 hours on a single charge.

The budget laptop includes a respectable 8GB of memory and 256GB of SSD storage, which should be sufficient for productivity and browsing. A 14-inch antiglare screen has an LED backlight and offers 1080p resolution.

Read more
Apple’s VR headset could launch early, and that’s risky
A rendering of an Apple mixed-reality headset (Reality Pro) in a gray color seen from the front.

Tim Cook has pushed for Apple to launch its Reality Pro mixed-reality headset as soon as possible, despite objections from the company’s powerful design team. The move raises questions over whether the device will be ready for prime time when it launches this summer.

The news comes from the Financial Times (FT), which cites a former Apple engineer as a source. This engineer reportedly worked on the headset project and noted that there is “huge pressure” on Apple to launch the Reality Pro after years of postponements.

Read more
Ranking all 12 versions of Windows, from worst to best
Windows 7 desktop.

You can tell a person's age by which version of Windows is their favorite. I have fond memories of XP and Windows 98 SE, so you can take a guess at mine, but I have colleagues who are much more enamored with Windows 7, or Windows 95. We all have something disparaging to say about Windows 8 though, and the less said about Windows Vista the better.

Ranking the different versions of Windows is about more than what era of computing you grew up in, though. There are some very serious duds in Microsoft's back catalog, just as there are a few wins too. But whether you can look back on some of Microsoft's disastrous releases with rose-tinted glasses, or have some genuine love for Microsoft's missteps, here's every version of Windows ranked from best to worst.
12. Windows ME

Read more