I just ordered new Macbook Air M1, my question is - Will I be able to install Windows 10 on my Mac with Boot Camp Assistant?

There are certainly different versions of Windows. The one almost everyone uses is made for x86 processors (and therefore will not work on the M1 without emulation of the x86 platform). The other is a version for ARM devices like Surface tablets. Microsoft doesn't sell the ARM version separately, so you can't get it and just install it in a virtual machine. This is the reason Craig Federighi recently said it's up to Microsoft whether Windows will work in virtualization on the M1 or not. Before Windows will run on the new Macs, Microsoft will need to start selling the version that can run on these Macs, i.e. the version they made for Surface computers.

Here is a more wordy explanation about the difference between emulation and virtualization.

https://www.google.nl/amp/techgenix.com/what-difference-between-emulation-vs-virtualization/amp/

twoframesperminute wrote:

Otherwise, read the article I linked before and learn something.

I think there is a misconception that Virtualization can support cross-machine CPU instruction sets. It cannot and does not. A VM engine provides a self-contained environment (layered on a Host OS) to allow a Guest OS to run, provided the CPU instructions sets are the same. Windows-on-Intel is the same as Windows-as-GuestOS-on-IntelHostOS.

Rossetta2 (and previously Rosetta) did that (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/about_the_rosetta_translation_environment). Insignia (started by Rod McGregor (?) ) and WiNE do that. Apple chose the burden to be Microsoft's, rather than doing it themselves. Fedrighi is correct.

For example, Solaris SPARC cannot run on x86 and vice-a-versa. HP-UX PA-RISC cannot run on Itanium and vice-a-versa. IBM AIX PowerPC cannot run on Intel CPUs.

Unless CPU manufacturers go back to CISC and start emulating at the hardware level, there is not way to run cross-machine OSes.

Loner T -

Under "What Can't Be Translated?" in the Rosetta2 docs, Apple lists "Virtual Machine apps that virtualize x86_64 computer platforms", so we cannot run a virtualization layer on top if an emulation layer.

Any idea why? Is this a real constraint, or is Apple just prohibiting it?

jargon wrote:

Loner T -

Under "What Can't Be Translated?" in the Rosetta2 docs, Apple lists "Virtual Machine apps that virtualize x86_64 computer platforms", so we cannot run a virtualization layer on top if an emulation layer.

You can, but it is prohibitively expensive. Modern CPUs use pipelining, look-ahead, predictive caching of execution paths and many other features. Emulation causes slowdowns in such processing. It is far simpler to build the OS on ARM M1. Windows does this on a Surface Pro X using their own variant of ARM called SQ1 and SQ2. I had much rather see Windows ported to ARM M1.

Any idea why? Is this a real constraint, or is Apple just prohibiting it?

M1 was specifically an Apple design, for macOS and it's evolution. It would mean a stronger cooperation between the two, but they are also competitors. Microsoft Office was ported to macOS because many consumers wanted a Mac, but also Office. BTW, I have a copy of 2004 MS Office. 😉

Apple has done this once before - PPC to Intel, while Microsoft has stayed with Intel. Microsoft had a path through WNT, but they choose to narrow the focus back to Intel.

Sign up to the Parallels Apple M1 Technical Beta Here;

https://b2b.parallels.com/Apple-Silic...

Say a test of office 2019 (x86) running on a M1 mac. See youtube.com

R