Just got a mac mini with M4. Found out my 5 Virtual Windows machines aren't compatible with silicon. Opened the KB article 125344 and followed steps to Transfer data for my Windows 10 VM. Step 5 says to copy the data and paste it to a new folder. I don't know which "data" is relevant, so I selected everything for Windows 10. It's been running for several minutes "preparing to copy 6xxx.xxx items" and counting. This can't be right. What am I doing wrong? Halp!
When you said you tried to copy everything for Windows 10 I was confused. You can only copy your personal data (usually is reside under your username), not system files or apps or any of the files that they need to execute. Allu the apps that you will be using in the future have to be installed as 64 bit apps under Windows 11.
Thanks for replying. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the process to get back up and running under Windows 11. I did successfully install Windows 11, now I need to get my apps and files transferred from my old Windows 7 and 10 virtual machines. So here are my questions 1. For my documents, can I copy my windows 7 & 10 desktop folders to my mac desktop and then dump those onto the desktop of my new Windows 11 VM, or do I only copy actual files, such as Excel spreadsheets or Word docs? 2. You mention I must install 64 bit apps. My current Office apps are 32 bit that were running on my 64 bit Windows 10 OS. Will my existing 32 bit Office apps no longer work on Windows 11?
How much data are you transferring - You say "endless" and then say "several minutes". Perhaps a little patience if you're transferring a lot of data. It takes a while as im guessing there are a lot of invisible files to transfer ash ell if your transferring your user folder.
I think it was "endless" because I was attempting to transfer the whole virtual machine and in fact it did eventually stop and say "disk is full", or something like that. I got a better handle on it now although I still have questions (see my last reply to SamS4).
Answers to questions 1 and 2. 1. Yes, you can copy folders with data files in them anywhere you want in your VM. If they are on the Desktop then you also see those on your Mac. 2. Go to https://www.office.com/ and create an account. You will need to license the Office Suite, but it's not expensive. A Family subscription (allowing 5 people to use the license is $129.99/yr, and an Individual license is $99.99/yr. Once you are licensed you download the new apps from within the VM and it will download the 64-bit versions. There is some good news here too. The 64-bit apps are stable, fast, and the future. 32-bit apps are history at this point so everyone has to eventually move on.
Okay, I got the part about the data folders. My issue is with the install of my Windows apps. I already have .img files for Office and MS Project and the image files contain both 32 and 64 bit professional versions of each app. I should not have to buy new apps. Ive been sort of successful installing Office but not so much with Project. I installed Office (64 bit version) and got a message saying it was installed. I activated it and all looked good but when I clicked on an Office app (Excel) I got a spinny disk, then nothing. Then I tried Word. Same thing except I got a message saying something like Windows is not configured to run this app. I thought alright Office is installed, let me try Project. I got a message saying there was a problem with the install. So I decided to use Copilot to help. One thing it suggested was to do a repair. Well, that didn't work so well, it "repaired" by replacing my Office Pro version with a Home and Office version. Sorry Charlie, that doesn't work for me but I left that in place for the time being because I wanted to see if Project would install now. Project installed, but again when I clicked on the app, spinny disk and then nothing. One of the more advanced suggestions by Copilot was to check the Windows Registry using RegEdit. It said to look for anomalies in the registry for the app. well, I found the registry was setting the start pointer for Project (File MRU) to my Mac desktop and not my Windows desktop. I fixed that, and then Project worked, except it said it wasn't compatible with the Office version I had. Well, duh! So now I'm at the point where I did an uninstall of Office and Project, restarted, and have re-installed Office Pro. There doesn't seem to be a start pointer for Office itself but there is one for each Office app. Now I'm in the Windows Registry and lo and behold, it's showing the Excel start pointer as my Mac desktop. I'm about ready to fix that and then go from there, but I have other pressing priorities at the moment, so I'll have to continue this saga later.
Update, resetting all the File MRU paths for Excel in the registry did not help. When I double click on the Excel icon, all I get is a spinny disk for a couple of seconds and then nothing. Running as administrator does not help. I need help!
I believe you are trying to install 32/64 bit apps that were designed for the Intel architecture. Remember that just because an app is 64 bit doesn't mean it will run on an ARM CPU architecture. You need to get a new license for Office 365, login from a browser within the VM, and download the Office apps. This will give you 64-bit apps that run on ARM.
