About running x86 VMs on M1 Macs

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PaulC47

Bit poster
Today it is not possible to emulate X86 OS (Mac, Windows) in a virtual machine on Mac M1.

Vmware guys said:
Well, the short answer is that there isn't exactly much business value relative to the engineering effort that is required, at least for the time being. For now, we're laser focused on making Arm Linux VMs on Apple silicon a delight to use.
So, to be a bit blunt, running x86 operating systems on Apple silicon is not something we are planning to deliver with this project.​

Is it a future possibility for Parallels? Are you studying to implement this feature or is it out of your plans?
 
My personal opinion - given the strides that Microsoft has made in improving Windows on Arm, including significantly x32/x64 emulation - is that external x64 VM support is not needed in the long run. Eventually everyone will move over to the native Arm versions. So it is a question of where Parallels and VMware put their engineering resources. VMware has to catch up to Parallels first so they are in a different league for now.
 
I am of the opinion that developers (and not only) would have much advantage to be able to verify the functions of a 64bit program on pre-M1 machines, which represent almost all of Mac and Windows computers today, and for several years it will continue to be like this .
Personally, I need to have virtual machines with previous Big Sur operating systems and various versions of Windows, without having to use two different computers.
That being said, my question is to understand the future intentions of Parallels on this topic.
 
As a developer: Buyed a new macbook pro M1 and could not load any of my dev and test vm's (div OSX versions, div. Win versions) in parallels. So the whole benefit is lost for me. So i will return the macbook pro m1 whio costs me about 4000 $.
My idea is to buy a windows laptop, put vmware on it and import my parallels vm's there. Should that work?
 
Jean-MarcK1 said:
As a developer: Buyed a new macbook pro M1 and could not load any of my dev and test vm's (div OSX versions, div. Win versions) in parallels. So the whole benefit is lost for me. So i will return the macbook pro m1 whio costs me about 4000 $.
My idea is to buy a windows laptop, put vmware on it and import my parallels vm's there. Should that work?
Click to expand...
Parallels does not run on Windows PCs to my knowledge (someone else?). However, you could still buy a Windows PC and set it next to your Mac for parallel app testing purposes.

If it is important for you to run apps side by side on a Mac, or if you need to preserve a Parallels Virtual Machine then I suggest buying either a refurbished Intel-based MacBook or a new Intel-based MacBook from one of the third-party vendors (e.g., B&H Video, Adorama). That way you can run both the VM and Mac apps side by side.
 
My situation here at the moment:
I develop applications for mac osx (and also for other platforms like windows, iOS and Adroid). I use mostly "embarcdero Rad Studio Delphi" for this. The IDE runs only in windows, so i have a "developer" parallels x86 VM (win 10, Delphi, SQL server, Visual studio etc.). For building OSX programs, i run the IDE on the Win VM and remote compile and debug the program on the mac.
For testing purposes i have a lot additional Parallel VM's with different Windows versions and OSX Versions, all of them created with the x86 Macbook Pro. On my x86 MacBook Pro, all run fine.
I owned some other MacBook Pro's before, and switching from the old to the new MacBook was very easy: Installing Parallels, copying the VM to the new MacBook and hit run. Done in under one hour and i was ready to work.
Because of that the new macbook pro had a M1 arm chip, i waited to buy a new one because parallels was working to address this. Then parallels sendet me a advertisement mail: "Parallels is running now on apple m1 chip". So i implicit assumed that all my older VM's will run on the new macbook pro now and i went ahead to buy one.
So i am sitting here now with a new macbook pro and no of my old VM's is running. That is so bad. I have to buy a win 11 licence and set up a new developer VM for me. That takes me days, not hours. Some of the older stuff will not run on win11 arm. So, at the end of this huge effort, i will have a brand new win11 arm developer VM on which the old stuff not work, and alle the Test VM's will also not run.
Very bad situation.
The point is, until now i was able to do all my work (developing, testing etc.) with one macbook pro. Now this does not work anymore.

So how could i rescue my situation?
 
Embarcadero RAD Studio (Delphi/C++Builder) runs just fine on a Windows 11/ARM VM (I'm doing the same)
You have to
  • Use a M1 Mac
  • Install Parallels/ARM
  • Install a new VM based on Windows 11/ARM
  • Install RAD Studio
You can't use your existing VMs (based on x64/x86) on a Mac with a M1. RAD Studio will run (at lightning speed) through the x86/x64 emulation provided by Windows ARM.
 
Grey Shadow said:
Embarcadero RAD Studio (Delphi/C++Builder) runs just fine on a Windows 11/ARM VM (I'm doing the same)
You have to
  • Use a M1 Mac
  • Install Parallels/ARM
  • Install a new VM based on Windows 11/ARM
  • Install RAD Studio
You can't use your existing VMs (based on x64/x86) on a Mac with a M1. RAD Studio will run (at lightning speed) through the x86/x64 emulation provided by Windows ARM.
Click to expand...
Now i am doing exact this.
The newest Rad Studio Alexandria installs and run just fine.
But i have some older projects who i can not migrate to the newest delphi version. They must compile with 10.2 Tokyo.
But with Rado Studio 10.2.2 Tokyo i have no luck. It seems that the installer has a problem. I can not choose the target system (Win32,Win64, OSX etc.) for installing. Just the plain empty IDE is installed.
Is there a tweek to get the installer run?
 
Running RAD Studio 10.2 (10.2.3) on Parallels-VM/Windows 11/ARM:
Two important notes:
- Install .NET framework 3.5 upfront (through "optionalfeatures.exe" on the Windows 11 VM
- Uninstall the GetIt/ESD version. Install RAD Studio from the ISO (download from my.embarcadero.com / delphicbuilder10_2_3__93231.iso).

Bildschirmfoto 2022-02-20 um 11.57.57.jpg
 
I'm in a similar but simpler boat. I develop in AppleScript an applet which I need to test on all versions of macOS from 10.11 up. With Parallels on an Intel Mac it's easy. But, my iMac is a late 2009 creaky old thing which I had planned to replace with a new M1 27" iMac later this year. But, now I know Parallels don't plan to enable macOS guests prior to 10.12 to work on M1, all my grand plans are ruined. Maybe, I should just buy a new Intel Mac and tell Apple to keep their M1 and ........
 
No x86 kind of defeats the point of installing parallels. I cant believe they'd not even consider it.
So, does VMware fusion work?
 
Hello!

If I read you correct I would have no big issues on installing Delphi 11.1 in a VM run by Parallells on ARM (M2)? That would be awesome as I really need to buy a new computer and my eyes is set on a MacBook (Air or PRO M2). I've had Delphi running under Parallells earlier although XE7 and then on (off course) an Intel Mac.

So - can I without problem purchase a M2 Macbook and continue use Delphi? :cool:
 
I've not seen any issue running RAD Studio 11.x on a Windows 64/ARM VM on my MacBook with an M1. Parallels 17.1.x
Haven't tried on an M2. But would expect the same :)
 
Thank You very much for that answer! :) Then I will order a new MacBook as soon as it will be available, just have to decide myself between Air and PRO...:D
 
MichaelH63 said:
It's not a matter of considering it. It is impossible because host and guest need to run on the same architecture.
As far as I know VMware Fusion still isn't able to run Windows or macOS on M1 at all.
If you want to run an x86 OS on M1, emulation is the only way to do it.
Click to expand...
Ah right. But doesn't M1 have hardware accelerated x86 emulation? I thought this is why parallels made the irreversible change of installing rozetta2 on my system (without telling me I might ad).
Guess I'm stuck then. Have to keep using the old PC to run VMs
 
Rosetta is leveraging hardware emulation tho right? So seemed it will be possible that someday someone will do the same for running VMs.
 
Grey Shadow said:
Embarcadero RAD Studio (Delphi/C++Builder) runs just fine on a Windows 11/ARM VM (I'm doing the same)
You have to
  • Use a M1 Mac
  • Install Parallels/ARM
  • Install a new VM based on Windows 11/ARM
  • Install RAD Studio
You can't use your existing VMs (based on x64/x86) on a Mac with a M1. RAD Studio will run (at lightning speed) through the x86/x64 emulation provided by Windows ARM.
Click to expand...

Hello,
What about build time? Is there any difference in build time between building a Delphi project on a native Windows environment and on Windows ARM under Parallels?
Do you have any experience with third party VCL components (e.g. Developer Express, TMS Software,...)?
I sincerely thank you for your response.

Bojan
 
Build times are (in general) excellent! Due to the native/emulated performance of Parallels/Windows(ARM): Massive CPU performance and SSD speed (here: M1 Max, 8 Cores for VM).
3rd party components: No obvious flaws. Just running as they should
 
Thanks for the answer.
I am planning to buy new Mac Mini M2 Pro with 10-core CPU, 512GB SSD, 16 GB RAM. What do you think about this configuration to running Delphi Alexandria in Parallels?
Thanks for your info.

Regards,
Bojan
 
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