Macbook Air 2020 Boot Camp Unsupported

The 2020 M1 Macs cannot boot any Windows system since it is an ARM64 processor and not an Intel processor. Microsoft does not provide a publicly licensed version of any Windows for the ARM platform. In order to run a licensed version of windows on a Mac, it must have and Intel processor.

Hi BudGetTheCam,

As mentioned by the others, Boot Camp Assistant can't run on your M1 MacBook Air, due to these reasons:

• The M1 chip is based on the ARM architecture, and

• Microsoft doesn't publicly license any ARM-based versions of Windows 10/11 to consumers. (They do to certain OEMs, but not Apple.)

That said, you could run an ARM-based copy of Windows 11 in a virtual machine, such as Parallels Desktop (version 17). To obtain the ARM version of Windows 11, you will need to register for the Windows Insider Program.

BudGetTheCam wrote:

I recently got the 2020 MacBook Air for the reason of being able to run Windows and MacOS, but when opening the Boot Camp Assistant it states that my Mac is not supported for it. My software is completely up to date, and I don't see any issues when going to the support pages to see what I need to do differently. Does anyone have any possible solutions?

As with the above reply…

Your Mac is not using an Intel x86-64 processor. Whether Microsoft offers for purchase a version of Windows for ARM64 / AArch64 / Arm / Apple silicon / M1 processors for purchase is up to Microsoft. Pending any changes over at Microsoft, your options here are to return this Mac and acquire an Intel-based Mac, or to use a different system.