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install windows on macmini

can I install windows on M1 mac mini?

Mac mini, macOS 13.3

Posted on Jun 10, 2023 11:57 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 11, 2023 1:56 PM

atamton wrote:

can I install windows on M1 mac mini?


Yes. Microsoft supports Windows 11 (Arm) booted as a guest of the Parallels hypervisor:


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-using-windows-11-with-mac-computers-with-apple-m1-and-m2-chips-cd15fd62-9b34-4b78-b0bc-121baa3c568c


This is booting and running as a guest on macOS, and not Windows booted directly via Boot Camp.

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 11, 2023 1:56 PM in response to atamton

atamton wrote:

can I install windows on M1 mac mini?


Yes. Microsoft supports Windows 11 (Arm) booted as a guest of the Parallels hypervisor:


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-using-windows-11-with-mac-computers-with-apple-m1-and-m2-chips-cd15fd62-9b34-4b78-b0bc-121baa3c568c


This is booting and running as a guest on macOS, and not Windows booted directly via Boot Camp.

Jun 11, 2023 1:53 PM in response to atamton

You can't run the Intel version of Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac. Not dual-boot, not in a virtual machine. The Apple Silicon machines, running an ARM-based instruction set, require ARM-based machine code.


You can run the ARM version of Windows in a Parallels virtual machine.

https://www.parallels.com/


For a while, they had people running Windows Insider Preview builds of Windows, but I believe that Microsoft has now given Parallels their blessing as a solution for running Windows 11 for ARM in a virtual machine.


Windows 11 for ARM can run some off-the-shelf Wintel applications, using an emulator or translator that Microsoft supplies. As with Rosetta 2 and macOS/Intel software, there are some limitations.

install windows on macmini

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