Hacker News Reader

Comment by spacedcowboy | Hacker News Reader

You don't have to pirate windows, you have to buy Parallels, which then downloads and installs Arm windows onto your M1 - and Arm Windows will run x86 binaries.

I used this to run FPGA bitstream-creation software on my Mac Studio. Worked like a dream. I'm generally fine with running on the PC on the bookshelf and serving s/w via MS Remote Desktop, but having it on the machine itself is a bit more useful in terms of screen real-estate (3x 4K monitors on the Mac).

View on HN

It's technically pirating because the license of Windows for ARM does not allow end users to run it on arbitrary hardware or virtualize it. I have doubts that they'd ever actually enforce those terms though.

It is a problem for businesses though. If they were going to go after anyone, it would be a business violating the EULA. Same problem with running macOS on Windows.

to be fair unofficial ports like this are never really meant for production use, and I'm going to make sure that's clear moving forward lol

I bought a Windows license and successfully activated WIN10 ARM running in Parallels.

>the license of Windows for ARM does not allow end users to run it on arbitrary hardware

Microsoft does not agree:

>Yes customers can use retail copies to run Windows 10/11 on Macs, including ARM Macs. The Windows retail EULA does not have any use rights restrictions on the type of device you install Windows on.

https://getwired.com/2022/02/03/can-you-run-windows-on-arm-o...

My interpretation of the MS insanity was that windows/ARM is currently exclusively licensed for Qualcomm chips or something similarly absurd?

This isn't quite the intent of the project here, though, which aims to run the ARM build of Windows as close to the hardware as possible. Not through a VM running inside macOS, but rather under a lightweight hypervisor running on the bare metal.

You might not have to pirate Windows to do this, but I feel the rest of your comment is missing the mark.

Parallels uses Insider builds of Windows ARM, which aren't useful if you want a stable system. Additionally, Microsoft only offers those builds for people who have Windows ARM licenses, so you can't use this in a professional setting since you're violating the EULA.

The current version of Parallels uses the stable build of Windows 11 for ARM.

Once you've installed Windows, it's possible to pay for and license Windows directly from Microsoft via the Windows Store app. There might be a brief period where you're technically unlicensed (not sure what the exact verbiage is in the current Windows EULA about trial/grace periods), but the end result is a properly-licensed Windows 11 install.

Last time I checked I could not purchase a license to activate Windows 11 ARM on Parallels on Mac.

It gave all sorts of not founds/errors in the store app.

This was a few months ago. Did it change or am I missing something?

Probably changed-- I had no issues buying a license back in March.

Parallels in operating in a legal gray area and using Insider builds of Windows on ARM that are not licensed for M1 hardware. There is currently no legal way, from a licensing standpoint, to have an ARM build running on a device that Microsoft does not have an existing agreement with.

If you're running an M1 with Parallels in any type of business or money-making environment then you're putting yourself at risk.

What's the basis for this view? Microsoft will happily sell me a license key for Windows 11, will let me download a Windows arm64 build and activate it, with the license explicitly stating that installation on a single virtual machine is permitted, and with no apparent restrictions on the hardware which can be used.

It's totally possible that I'm just missing something but I don't really see what it is – as far as I can tell I purchased and activated a copy of Windows 11 21H2 directly from Microsoft.

I don’t get it. Microsoft just refuses to license windows on ARM to end users.

There’s a VS community post about it, and I think there must be some denial or something going on. Lots of deliberately obtuse thinking and circular reasoning for why this can never ever happen, despite 100,000 Parallels users demonstrating that it works.

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Native-ARM-Sup...

> There is currently no legal way, from a licensing standpoint, to have an ARM build running on a device that Microsoft does not have an existing agreement with.

That appears to be incorrect[0]:

> Fortunately, they had something to share later, again through an official Microsoft spokesperson (that faceless PR-driven process where press or analysts can ask Microsoft for an official response to a question). A lengthy Twitter thread on the topic[1] (driven by a new ARM64-based mini-desktop computer that ships with Windows 11 but without a license — until that was changed by the manufacturer of the device to say that it did indeed include a license) pointed to a blog post from Wes Miller[2], an analyst and licensing expert with Directions on Microsoft[3]. That post included this quote:

>> Yes customers can use retail copies to run Windows 10/11 on Macs, including ARM Macs. The Windows retail EULA does not have any use rights restrictions on the type of device you install Windows on. Note that the EULA does stipulate that not all versions of Windows are supported on all device types, so theoretically customers could run into compatibility issues with performance & support case by case, but this is not a licensing restriction. Customers can find more details on compatibility at https://aka.ms/minhw.

[0] https://oofhours.com/2022/04/12/microsoft-will-let-you-run-w...

[1] https://twitter.com/mniehaus/status/1512962942165262337

[2] https://getwired.com/2022/02/03/can-you-run-windows-on-arm-o...

[3] https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/

No, I bought a license and Windows activated itself running in Parallels. What is the risk?

Interestingly, the availability of Rosetta for Linux suggests a much cleaner solution for FPGA development. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com