Will Windows 10 (for Intel) work with Parallels running on a Mac M1 or M2? (Altium Designer)

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DavidA4

Hunter
The title says it all. I'm considering upgrading my old 2015 MacBook Pro - to an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro (MBP). I might consider a refurbished MBP so it is possible I might buy anything built in the years 2021 to present. I don't know if the manufacture date of a MBP matters much when considering running my original Windows 10 copy.

Or, is it the case that you can only run ARM based Windows with Parallels on an M1/M2 MBP? I know very little about that to be honest.

I plan to run Altium Designer using Parallels (as I have done since 2015) - but my 2015 MBP is an Intel based machine. Not sure if there would be any problems if I made the upgrade and attempted to get Altium Designer running.

Thanks for any info and/or your personal experiences.
 
DavidA4 said:
The title says it all. I'm considering upgrading my old 2015 MacBook Pro - to an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro (MBP). I might consider a refurbished MBP so it is possible I might buy anything built in the years 2021 to present. I don't know if the manufacture date of a MBP matters much when considering running my original Windows 10 copy.

Or, is it the case that you can only run ARM based Windows with Parallels on an M1/M2 MBP? I know very little about that to be honest.

I plan to run Altium Designer using Parallels (as I have done since 2015) - but my 2015 MBP is an Intel based machine. Not sure if there would be any problems if I made the upgrade and attempted to get Altium Designer running.

Thanks for any info and/or your personal experiences.
Click to expand...

Hello,
Thank you for reaching out to Parallels.
Unfortunately, Windows 10 is not supported on Mac with M1 or M2 chips.
In case you are upgrading to M-series Mac, you will need to find out if your application is compatible with ARM based Windows 11 for it to run smoothly.
Regards
 
Trishna Oobeyram said:
Hello,
Thank you for reaching out to Parallels.
Unfortunately, Windows 10 is not supported on Mac with M1 or M2 chips.
In case you are upgrading to M-series Mac, you will need to find out if your application is compatible with ARM based Windows 11 for it to run smoothly.
Regards
Click to expand...
I don't believe Altium Designer is compatible with the ARM based Windows running under Parallels. My 2015 MBP is too slow to run Windows 10 under Parallels - so, I tend to not use Altium on my MacBook any longer. Oh well. Running Altium on my MacBook was nice while it lasted.
 
DavidA4 said:
I don't believe Altium Designer is compatible with the ARM based Windows running under Parallels. My 2015 MBP is too slow to run Windows 10 under Parallels - so, I tend to not use Altium on my MacBook any longer. Oh well. Running Altium on my MacBook was nice while it lasted.
Click to expand...
Hi David,
Let me provide you with more details on that:
1. You won't be able to move any virtual machines from a Mac with an Intel processor to a Mac with Apple silicon due to the difference in the architecture. As a result, you'll need to create a new Windows 11 virtual machine which can be done with a few clicks. Apps that worked in Windows 10 should keep working in Windows 11 as well. So, Windows 11 instead of Windows 10 shouldn't be a problem here.
2. Install and run Altium inside the virtual machine. It should run well based on the data we have (but it's always better to check yourself first).
 
Mikhail Ushakov said:
Hi David,
Let me provide you with more details on that:
1. You won't be able to move any virtual machines from a Mac with an Intel processor to a Mac with Apple silicon due to the difference in the architecture. As a result, you'll need to create a new Windows 11 virtual machine which can be done with a few clicks. Apps that worked in Windows 10 should keep working in Windows 11 as well. So, Windows 11 instead of Windows 10 shouldn't be a problem here.
2. Install and run Altium inside the virtual machine. It should run well based on the data we have (but it's always better to check yourself first).
Click to expand...
I've visited the Altium forum and have read a post describing very poor performance of Altium running in the ARM based Windows 11 as a virtual machine in Parallels.
 
I'm running on a Mac Studio M2 Ultra, it is close to unusable.
Doesn't matter how many cores or ram I assign, Altium is slower than running it on a 15 year old base level PC.

Any tips & tricks on what can be tuned to speed things up?
 
DavidE7 said:
I'm running on a Mac Studio M2 Ultra, it is close to unusable.
Doesn't matter how many cores or ram I assign, Altium is slower than running it on a 15 year old base level PC.

Any tips & tricks on what can be tuned to speed things up?
Click to expand...
Hello David,

We have created a ticket for you and will be following up through the ticket to further investigate the issue.

Regards,
Parallels Team
 
I have not experienced what DavidE7 says about Altium.

I have personally setup, tested and used Altium on a MacBook Pro M1 with 16MB of memory and it ran at the same speed if not faster than my 2019 MPB I9 with 32 GB RAM. I put the time and money into testing such a system before committing as I plan to transition to a newer computer and Windows 11.

I performed several tests and comparisons and recorded the data.

The only significant limitation I discovered is the use of software such as OrCad that requires the use of a software license dongle. The driver's are not available for that dongle and therefore I could not do the same tests with OrCad. I performed that test in April 2025. The drivers may be available now.

I recommend DavidE7 check his setup. The 15 year old base level PC comment is not typical.
 
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