#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX FOR FREE#
#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX HOW TO#
#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX INSTALL#
#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX UPGRADE#

#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX UPGRADE#

Download Windows 11 from Microsoft, free upgrade as long as you qualify.

#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX FOR FREE#

If you are looking to run Windows on a Mac that isn’t powered by an Apple M-series chip, then you can download Windows 11 for free (as long as your Mac has the necessary specs, such as the Trusted Platform Module, to qualify for the free upgrade).

#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX HOW TO#

How to download the X86 version of Windows 11 More information on Parallels website here. Parallels confirmed that Microsoft doesn’t differentiate between Windows On Intel and Windows On Arm, so a Windows 11 license can be used for either version.

You can then use the Microsoft Store app within your Windows VM to purchase a license or use an existing Windows 11 license if you have one.

Parallels will download the relevant version of Windows 11 for your Mac (if your Mac has an ARM processor then it will download the ARM version of Windows 11).

Press the button that says Get Windows 11 From Microsoft.

To download and buy the ARM version of Windows 11 directly within Parallels itself. All you need to do is: How to download the ARM version of Windows 11 Read our full review of Parallels Desktop for more information. Then in February 2023 Microsoft even endorsed Parallels for Windows on M1 and M2 Macs, effectively authorising Parallels Desktop 18 users to run Arm versions of Windows 11 Pro and Windows 11 Enterprise. Luckily this changed with the arrival of Parallels Desktop 18 in 2022, which added the ability to download and buy the ARM version of Windows 11 directly within Parallels itself. The main problem here is that WoA isn’t normally licensed to individual users, which has meant that owners of M-series Macs faced both technical and licensing problems if they wanted to run Windows on their Macs.

Windows On ARM, aka WoA, is Microsoft’s version of Windows is designed to run on ARM chips. The good news is that an ARM version of Windows does exist. Even if Boot Camp was an option for modern Macs, because the M-series processors are not compatible with the x86 version of Windows, they would only be able to run an ARM version of Windows. Rather than the x86 architecture used by Intel processors, Apple’s processors use a different architecture, known as ARM (named after Arm Ltd, the British company that originally designed the chips). Now every Mac Apple sells has an Apple-made M-series processor. However, in 2020 Apple started its move away from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon processors.

There are millions of Intel-based Macs still in use all around the world that can still use either Boot Camp or virtualization to run Windows. The only disadvantage is that you need a pretty fast Mac with plenty of memory and storage to run Windows as a VM, since it means that your Mac is effectively running two operating systems at the same time. This is a great solution as it allows you to run the Windows apps that you need right alongside your main Mac apps as well.

#VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR OSX INSTALL#

So you can create a VM on your Mac and then install Windows – or another operating system, such as Linux – on the VM.

Virtualization programs such as Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion run on the macOS, but allow you to create a Virtual Machine (or VM) that mimics the hardware of a Windows PC. Luckily there are plenty, many of which use virtualization to create a Virtual Machine that emulates the computer system required to run the operating system of your choice. In the case of M-series Macs, and for anyone with an older Mac that wants to run Windows 11, or two or more operating systems side by side, you’ll need an alternative to Boot Camp. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t install Windows on a M-series Mac, it’s just a little more complicated because the M-series chips are ARM-based so you need an ARM version of Windows. So if you have purchased a Mac in the past couple of years, and it doesn’t have an Intel processor, Boot Camp won’t even be an option. There’s another issue with Boot Camp that is even more pressing though: it isn’t a feature of M-series Macs.

Virtual machine for osx