Apple has officially acknowledged that switching to its own, ARM-based Apple silicon will be the end of Boot Camp support which was critical to run Windows 10 in virtualization mode that successfully mimicked native operation. While this clearly indicates newer Apple Macintosh computers won’t be able to install and run Windows 10, there could be a way to run a parallel operating system other than macOS on Apple Macs.
New Apple Mac PCs With ARM-based Proprietary Processors Won’t Be Able To Run Windows 10:
All currently available Apple Mac PCs running on Intel’s CPUs have a tool in macOS called Boot Camp that facilitates the installation of Windows on another drive or partition, right from macOS. It is an entire ecosystem that includes all the necessary drivers and tools that allow smooth installation and operation of Windows 10 on an Apple Mac. Once users install Windows 10 following this route, they are essentially running the Microsoft OS “natively”. It essentially means there’s virtually no virtualization overheads. Apple Boot Camp is by far a much better solution compared to Parallels or VMWare. Gamers have always cherished Boot Camp as games tend to run more optimally under Windows than they do under macOS.
— Mase Global Technologies (@maseglobaltech) June 25, 2020 Now Apple has confirmed that new Apple Mac PCs won’t have Boot Camp, and hence, these powerful computers won’t support Windows 10 installation and operation. “Apple will start switching its Macs to its own ARM-based processors later this year, but you won’t be able to run Windows in Boot Camp mode on them.” Microsoft only licenses Windows 10 on ARM (WoA) to PC makers to preinstall on new hardware. In other words, Microsoft hasn’t made compatible copies of the operating system available for anyone to license or freely install. Incidentally, Boot Camp will continue to be supported on Intel-based Macs in macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple’s latest version for macOS. Moreover, the transition to Apple’s own ARM-based SoCs will take about two years. However, this also means that the fate of Boot Camp beyond Big Sur is quite uncertain.
How To Run Windows 10 OS Natively on Apple Mac PCs With ARM-Based Apple Processors?
Apple Macs are quite powerful. Hence it is quite likely that users will attempt methods other than Boot Camp to get Windows 10 OS running on Apple Mac computers. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, said, “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system. Purely virtualization is the route. These hypervisors can be very efficient, so the need to direct boot shouldn’t really be the concern.”
— Java Wales (@JavaWales) June 25, 2020 This is an indication that Windows 10 OS could run on new Apple Macs with ARM-based proprietary Apple CPUs. However, Apple’s Rosetta software, which will be used to help translate software to make it compatible with Apple’s ARM Macs will reportedly not support virtualization software like Parallels natively. Rosetta doesn’t work with Virtual Machine apps that virtualize X86_64.
