I'm a bit shocked that it would even be possible for a third party to implement such a thing without rebuilding Windows itself. Is it a matter of implementing "device drivers"?
Welcome to the M1 Windows project
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Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#12Why would Apple want to make it hard to run aarch64 Windows on an M1 device? Their support for Windows in Boot Camp drove a lot of sales of Mac hardware after the switch to Intel. Seems Apple is limiting their hardware sales to not support Windows on M-series Macs. (Then again, if they are having supply/capacity issues then maybe it's a matter it being on the roadmap but they want their hardware running macOS until t…
Apple has stated that they won't stand in the way of Microsoft porting Windows to M1 Macs[0], and indeed M-series Macs have the bits needed to boot alternative operating systems that M-series iDevices lack. Currently Microsoft only licenses Windows for ARM to device makers (and potentially has an exclusivity agreement with Qualcomm[1]) and has stated that they don't support Windows on M-series. The ball in is Microsoft's court on this one.
[0]: https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/20/windows-can-run-natively-m1-m... [1]: https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-mic...
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#13Why would Apple want to make it hard to run aarch64 Windows on an M1 device? Their support for Windows in Boot Camp drove a lot of sales of Mac hardware after the switch to Intel. Seems Apple is limiting their hardware sales to not support Windows on M-series Macs. (Then again, if they are having supply/capacity issues then maybe it's a matter it being on the roadmap but they want their hardware running macOS until t…
Who says Apple wants to make it hard? Not prioritizing making it not hard probably is enough to make it hard for those outside of Apple (and “not prioritizing” probably comes about because they don’t see many people running essential software on aarch64 Windows that doesn’t run on Apple hardware, or has equivalent tools on Apple hardware)
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#14Do you think it would eventually be possible to run amd64 programs on it (like rosetta2 but for Microsoft Windows?) The main feature of Windows is legacy compatibility and that is perhaps why arm Windows doesn't seems to gain much traction.
Eventually I wonder if this project could be helpful to run wine on asahi linux, which would be awesome.
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#15Why would Apple want to make it hard to run aarch64 Windows on an M1 device? Their support for Windows in Boot Camp drove a lot of sales of Mac hardware after the switch to Intel. Seems Apple is limiting their hardware sales to not support Windows on M-series Macs. (Then again, if they are having supply/capacity issues then maybe it's a matter it being on the roadmap but they want their hardware running macOS until t…
Apple is in a very different position than they were with the switch to Intel. Some versions of Microsoft Office lack "legacy" features like Excel macros [1] and collaborative editing [2]. Microsoft would love to run Office inside a version of Windows on the Mac, as part of an on-ramp to people buying Surface-branded hardware. Apple isn't going to be an euthastic provider of this.
[1] Works-ish on Mac, not at all on iPhone.
[2] Collaborative editing on the Mac version works until you point at a file hosted on an on-premise Sharepoint instance, then it's Windows only.
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#16Why Windows? Why not ReactOS?
ReactOS is nowhere near enough the quality you'd need - you don't want to waste time figuring out if you are fighting a bug in ReactOS or in your own code.
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#17I'm a bit shocked that it would even be possible for a third party to implement such a thing without rebuilding Windows itself. Is it a matter of implementing "device drivers"?
My understanding is that drivers aren't part of the kernel in Windows like they are in Linux. And I believe an ARM build of some kind or another already exists out there for Windows
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#18Why Windows? Why not ReactOS?
Windows, for its many faults, is feature complete and officially supports ARM today. Neither is true of ReactOS. Thus, it's currently much easier and more useful to port windows.
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#19Do you think it would eventually be possible to run amd64 programs on it (like rosetta2 but for Microsoft Windows?) The main feature of Windows is legacy compatibility and that is perhaps why arm Windows doesn't seems to gain much traction. Eventually I wonder if this project could be helpful to run wine on asahi linux, which would be awesome.
Arm windows already has that functionality.
Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project
#20Why would Apple want to make it hard to run aarch64 Windows on an M1 device? Their support for Windows in Boot Camp drove a lot of sales of Mac hardware after the switch to Intel. Seems Apple is limiting their hardware sales to not support Windows on M-series Macs. (Then again, if they are having supply/capacity issues then maybe it's a matter it being on the roadmap but they want their hardware running macOS until t…
Why would Apple want to go out of their way to make it easy to run Windows on an M1 device? Maybe they just developed the platform to run the intended target OS, and didn't bother to include features that weren't necessary to meet that goal.