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Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

macrumors.com

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Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#51

Post by asimovDev »

amluto wrote: post #23
nazgulsenpai wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took 6 minutes from power button to login prompt this morning. Probably even longer from login responsive desktop. So yes, probably!

I’ve helped someone with a rather clean iMac, circa 2019, still supported by Apple. Forget 6 minutes — you can spend a full hour from boot to giving up trying to get anything done. I think that Apple has gotten so used to having fast storage in their machines that the newer OSes basically don’t work on spinning rust.

these iMacs have horrible Fusion drives (128GB SSD + 1TB HDD combo) iirc that fail often. Have you looked into that?

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#53

Post by zbentley »

Aurornis wrote: post #41
bfrog wrote: post #13

Funnily it probably runs Windows better than the typical corporate spyware burdened x86 laptop.

Every thread about Windows on Hacker News includes claims about apps taking 30 seconds to launch, web pages taking 20 seconds to load, simple applications being unusable, and other extreme performance problems. These are puzzling for anyone (like me) who uses Windows at home without all of these extreme performance problems. That was until I realized how many reports are coming from people talking about their work la…

I once worked on a computer for the US Government that felt slow. I counted nine (9) directly competitive and redundant endpoint protection products on it.

Not nine different/only somewhat overlapping pieces of software from companies that were competitors. Nine equivalent products. I guess defender made ten.

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#54

Post by Retr0id »

hu3 wrote: post #27
enopod_ wrote: post #19

Can it run Linux?

Native, no. That would cannibalise Apple services which is a huge source of revenue for them.

Have you confirmed this? I haven't seen anyone concretely describe the boot policy of the Neo yet (it should be an easy enough check for anyone who has one in-hand).

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#55

Post by conradev »

Someone1234 wrote: post #44

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. Few will buy a cheap computer and then pay what Parallels charges for a license (regardless if one-time or subscription). They need to introduce something below the Standard license targeting the Neo…

VMWare Fusion is free, even if it is a pain in the butt to download. It also has GPU paravirtualization for Linux/Windows which is the only reason I use a proprietary VMM on macOS these days.

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#56

Post by everdrive »

Aurornis wrote: post #41
bfrog wrote: post #13

Funnily it probably runs Windows better than the typical corporate spyware burdened x86 laptop.

Every thread about Windows on Hacker News includes claims about apps taking 30 seconds to launch, web pages taking 20 seconds to load, simple applications being unusable, and other extreme performance problems. These are puzzling for anyone (like me) who uses Windows at home without all of these extreme performance problems. That was until I realized how many reports are coming from people talking about their work la…

There's an unspoken rule in corporate America, colleges, etc. Laptops MUST be loaded down with terrible software, no exceptions. My last corporate laptop actually had the paid version of winzip in 2025, and it ran with a little tray icon that I couldn't disable or remove. That was in addition to all the other corporate crap I couldn't remove.

Some of this is not _just_ a corporate problem. Why would Winzip have an auto run application and tray application in the first place? Every single app seems to think they need one, and it's a classical tragedy of the commons. Perhaps on a virgin Windows install, your app with autorun and a tray icon will be more responsive. But when 20 other apps pull that same trick, no one wins.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm not excited at the idea of Linux defeating Windows. If it did, corporations would just start crapping up Linux the way they've crapped up Windows.

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#57

Post by Retr0id »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #40
jagged-chisel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a VM, definitely. Just like other Macs.

If the A18 Pro has the same ISA as the M-series chips then this may not be so straightforward. I am still hanging on to my 2020 Intel MBP for dear life because it is the only Apple device I own that allows me to run Ubuntu and Windows 11 on a VirtualBox VM.

As long as you're ok with arm64 guests, you can absolutely run both Ubuntu and Win11 VMs on M-series CPUs. Parallels also supports x86 guests via emulation.

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#58

Post by garblegarble »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #40
jagged-chisel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a VM, definitely. Just like other Macs.

If the A18 Pro has the same ISA as the M-series chips then this may not be so straightforward. I am still hanging on to my 2020 Intel MBP for dear life because it is the only Apple device I own that allows me to run Ubuntu and Windows 11 on a VirtualBox VM.

Would you elaborate what you mean by saying Linux on an M-series chip isn't straightforward? That's not been my experience, I (and lots of other devs) use it every day, Apple supports Linux via [0], and provides the ability to use Rosetta 2 within VMs to run legacy x86 binaries?

0: https://github.com/apple/container

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#59

Post by muricula »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #40
jagged-chisel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a VM, definitely. Just like other Macs.

If the A18 Pro has the same ISA as the M-series chips then this may not be so straightforward. I am still hanging on to my 2020 Intel MBP for dear life because it is the only Apple device I own that allows me to run Ubuntu and Windows 11 on a VirtualBox VM.

Same Armv8 ISA. And it's the same ISA Android Linux has run on for over a decade.

Re: Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

#60

Post by Asmod4n »

Someone1234 wrote: post #44

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. Few will buy a cheap computer and then pay what Parallels charges for a license (regardless if one-time or subscription). They need to introduce something below the Standard license targeting the Neo…

Apple already sells that, it’s called MacBook Air.
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