

- #Windows virtual machine on mac install
- #Windows virtual machine on mac software
- #Windows virtual machine on mac mac
#Windows virtual machine on mac install
I found an article by Steve Sande on the OWC blog where he walks through the steps to configure UTM on an M1 Mac, and install Windows on ARM for free, legitimately. The value that UTM brings to QEMU is that it’s a graphical user interface not requiring a plethora of command line options and flags, so the learning curve is much more gentle.
#Windows virtual machine on mac software
Under the hood of UTM is QEMU, a decades-old, free and open source emulation software that is widely used and actively maintained.

Sadly, it requires you to jailbreak your iOS device so I declined that opportunity but running this on macOS Big Sur sounded like good fun. And then I discovered an open source virtual machine app I hadn’t heard of called UTM which runs on M1 and even on iOS. I did a bit of poking around looking into what virtual machine software runs on the M1s and discovered that VirtualBox from Oracle and the commercial software VMware Fusion do not, but Parallels Desktop does. When I asked him about this limitation of the M1 he said he didn’t see it as an issue (not sure why) but that he hadn’t yet looked into whether the open source virtual machine software VirtualBox would run on the M1, at least to run a Linux distribution (or distro as the cool kids say.)
#Windows virtual machine on mac mac
He has touted the Mac as the best platform because he can run macOS, Linux, and Windows all on one piece of hardware. Knightwise’s mantra is “making technology work for you” and the center of that is being a slider who can use the best tool for the job, rather than being fanatically attached to one company’s technology (like some people we know). I was actually surprised that in Knightwise’s recording about how much value he’s getting from his M1 MacBook Air, he never mentioned that as a downside. Performance is also really good, though one of the limitations of the free version is that you can only have one VM running at a time.I talked on the show a while back about how the one downside to an M1 Mac is that you can’t run Windows, or at least not without a lot of faffing about. At its heart, VMware Workstation Player is really easy to use, with some more advanced features if you want to dive a bit deeper. Workstation Player also provides additional tools like GPU virtualization, USB pass-through, and the VMware Tools plugins allow you to seamlessly shut down and suspend VMs without having to have them open. You may run into some compatibility issues on some hardware if you're trying to virtualize Windows (nested virtualization), but it's still absolutely possible, alongside any Linux distribution you can think of. Naturally, the more resources you have, the better your VMs will run, but even on a lower-spec machine, you're not excluded. Perhaps surprisingly, VMware Workstation Player also doesn't command particularly high-end hardware to run. But for the most part, it's basically the same.

There are differences between the two, and there are some useful features, like snapshots, hidden behind the paid version. VMware Workstation Player is a completely free-to-use version of its desktop VM software, Workstation Pro. That isn't totally untrue, but it's far from being true. You've probably heard of VMware and you probably assume it comes with some fairly hefty price attached. Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
