For that, a Microsoft account registered with the Windows Insider Program will be required since M1 chips cannot run the Intel version of Windows 11 on Parallels 17. As of November 2021, if you want to install Windows 11 on Mac M1 chips, you must download Windows 11 on ARM preview builds from Microsoft. Second, you will require a license to Windows 11, purchasable from Microsoft’s official site, following your OS installation. Make sure you download it from the official Parallels website. They provide a free trial for a specific period so that you can check them out. The home version of Parallels 17 costs around $80, or else if you already have an older version, you can pay $50 to upgrade it. This version supports Windows 11 on macOS Catalina, Monterey, and Big Sur. Prerequisites for Running Windows on M1 Macįirst and foremost, of course, you will require Parallels 17. Parallels, unlike Boot Camp, make transitioning between Windows and Mac OS more flexible and fluid. With Boot Camp, you can only use one OS at a time, and switching between two operating systems will require a reboot. This is an alternative to Boot Camp, which demands the installation of Windows on a separate partition on the M1 Mac’s SSD or HDD. Moreover, as Boot Camp does not work with M1 Macs, the only way to run a version of Windows 11 on Mac M1 chips is through Parallels. Since it only works with ARM or Advanced RISC Machine chips, many softwares and apps might not be compatible unless they gel with ARM. Windows ARM is similar to the Windows standard version minus the full-fledged compatibility of the latter. Unlike Intel Macs, here you cannot run the standard x86 version of Windows 11, although there is reason to believe that Parallels will soon make room for this as well. Using Parallels 17, you can install Windows 11 on Mac M1 chips but note that you can only run the Windows 11 Insider Preview version for ARM on M1 Macs. Here’s where Parallels come in: they can cleverly emulate TPM modules on your Mac system, letting you run Windows 11 without a hitch. Windows 11 requires a physical TPM chip, and when it comes to the M1 Mac, it is equivalent to the T2 chips from Apple. Having said that, there are ways to bypass the stringent limitations of the Apple ecosystem.

Prerequisites for Running Windows on M1 Macįirst and foremost, let’s get one thing out of the way- there is no way to directly run Windows 11 on Mac M1 chips without tweaking or installing anything extra.

Run windows on mac m1