Install Windows 11 ARM on M1-based Macs with UTM (2023)

A topic that comes up frequently is the ability to run Windows on an M1-based Mac. While many people swear by macOS, Bootcamp and Windows on a Mac still seem to be a widely used option. Since these M1-based devices use a different architecture - ARM - they are not compatible with the older and most widely used architecture of Mac for Windows-based computers - x86. This means that when it comes to running Windows on an M1 device, you basically have two options: use an ARM-based version of Windows, or emulate an x86-64-based computer and run a regular version of Windows. For this article, I'll be running Windows 11 for ARM using UTM on a MacBook Air M1.

If you're interested, I also made a YouTube video of this blog post. If you prefer the classic text, just follow the rest of this article:

As mentioned above, there are two ways to get Windows working on an Apple M1 based device. The first concerns virtualization, since we can't (yet) run Windows natively on an M1-based machine. The second refers to emulation, where we translate the instructions between the running operating system (in this case, Windows) and the hardware. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. The emulation offers maximum compatibility as it does not require software written specifically for ARM, but it is quite slow. Virtualization is faster, but requires software written for the hardware platform it runs on.

Both methods can be done with UTM (https://github.com/utmapp/UTM🇧🇷 UTM offers QEMU-based virtualization and emulation with a convenient GUI for IOS and macOS. Since QEMU is used under the hood, it is capable of emulating different processor architectures (such as x86-64), but it can also virtualize for the host architecture.

After a quick test, which I plan to write a more detailed article about in the future, using the emulation seems to be a huge overhead and ends up being too slow to use at the moment.
Only virtualization remains a real option. The downside to this approach is that there is currently no official way to license an ARM-based version of Windows. Microsoft has decided that this will only be available for sale to system builders. Another drawback is that there are very few apps built to run on an ARM-based version of Windows. Fortunately, you can run most 32-bit-based Windows applications on the ARM version of Windows, which is available for most applications.

For this article, I'm using a 2020 M1-based MacBook Air, but it should work just as well for an iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, and even the recently announced M1 Max and M1 Pro devices.

Step 1) Create a Windows 11 ISO for ARM

The first thing we'll need is installation media for the ARM-based version of Windows 11. If you're part of the Windows Insider Program, there's a version available for download that uses a VHDX file. Unfortunately, I couldn't get this to work properly and my virtual machine got stuck at the "First Steps" screen on first boot.

Since that didn't work, I decided to use the UUP dump method. UUP stands for Unified Update Platform. This is basically a deployment method that Microsoft introduced a few years ago that allows for a sort of incremental update of parts of Windows, rather than deploying everything from scratch each time. You can generate a script on the UUP dump site that will download these UUPs from Microsoft and combine them into a working ISO file.

To sum it all up, first navigate to the UUP download site:https://uupdump.net/🇧🇷 Select the arm64 version of the latest version of the beta channel:

On the next page, select your version of Windows 11. At the time of writing, it is 10.0.22000.160.

I then unchecked "Include updates", but that's not strictly necessary. Then click on “Create download package”:

As you will see, this will download a ZIP file containing some scripts. The uup_download_macos.sh script is what we need to run:

Before we can run the script, we first need to install some tools on our Mac. The easiest way to do this is to use Homebrew. Start by navigating to the homebrew website (https://brew.sh/) and copy the command that appears under "Install Homebrew":

Open a terminal window, paste the command, and press Enter. If prompted, enter your user password:

jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"==> SearchsudoAccess (which may request your password). 1/opt/homebrew/share/zsh/site-functions/_brew/opt/homebrew/etc/bash_completion.d/brew/opt/homebrew==> The following new directories will be created: /opt/homebrew/Cellar/opt / homebrew/Caskroom...==> Next steps:- Run these two commands in your terminal to add homebrew to your PATH: echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users / jensd/.zprofile eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)" - Run `brew help` to get started - More documentation: https://docs.brew.shjensd@jensds-MacBook -air ~ %

At this point, Homebrew is installed on your Mac, but you need to add it to your PATH as suggested in the last output of the above command:

jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Usuarios/jensd/.zprofilejensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %

Once this is done, we can use Homebrew to install the necessary tools to be able to run the UUP dump script:

jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %sidneys/homebrew beer tap==> Playing sidneys/homebrew... 8 barrels and 22 formulas reproduced (42 files, 157.3 KB).jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~%instalar brew aria2 cabextract wimlib cdrtools sidneys/homebrew/chntpw==> Download from https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/ca-certificates/manifests/2021-09-30-1################## ############################################# # # ## 100.0%...x86_64cpuid.s:273:10: error: invalid operand cmpq $0,%rax ^x86_64cpuid.s:274:9: error: unknown token in expression cmoveq %rcx,%rax ^x86_64cpuid. s : 274:9: Error: invalid operand cmoveq %rcx,%rax ^make[1]: *** [x86_64cpuid.o] error 1make: *** [build_crypto] error 1 Do not report this problem to homebrew/brew or Homebrew /core! These open issues may also help: Mac M1 chntpw won't compile (openssl 1.0 requirement not met) https://github.com/sidneys/homebrew-homebrew/issues/2

As you can see, the chntpw tool does not install because it gives an error. The OpenSSL requirement is the problem, but the error message also tells us the solution, which is to create OpenSSL yourself. See the Github link shared above for more details. Basically, you need to do the following:

jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %curl -LO https://gist.github.com/minacle/e9dedb8c17025a23a453f8f30eced3da/raw/908b944b3fe2e9f348fbe8b8800daebd87b5966c/openssl@1.0.rbcurl -LO https://gist.github.com/minacle/e9dedb8c17025a23a453f8f30eced3da/raw/908b944b3fe2e9f348fbe8b8800daebd87b5966c/chntpw.rbbrew install --formula --build-from-source ./openssl@1.0.rbbrew install --formula --build-from-source ./chntpw.rbrm ./openssl@1.0.rb ./chntpw.rb...Patching-Datei Makefile==> make🍺 /opt/homebrew/Cellar/chntpw/0.99.6: 5 Dateien, 296,3KB, in 2 Sekunden erstelltEntfernen: /Users/jensd/Library/Caches/Homebrew/chntpw- -parche --dbf09ccee4eaf401e2680554990ee924bb0ad1dd7661a3c97d67bf796089fbbe.patch... (211B)jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %

So far, it's been a lot of steps... But finally, we can run the script we got from the UUP download site. First navigate to the directory where you downloaded and extracted the files, then run the macOS version of the script:

jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air ~ %CD downloadsjensd@jensds-MacBook-Air Descargas %cd 22000.160_arm64_en-us_professional_fdb8a3c7_convertjensd@jensds-MacBook-Air 22000.160_arm64_en-us_professional_fdb8a3c7_convert %bash uup_download_macos.shGetting the aria2 script... 22.10. 11:46:10 [NOTE] Downloading 1 item(s)[#8c33b1 0B/0B CN:1 DL:0B] ... 99.63% complete, estimated completion Oct 22 11:51:38 2021 99, 86 % complete, est to finish Fri Oct 22 11:51:38 2021 Total Translation Table Size: 2048 Rockridge Attribute Total Bytes: 0 Directory Total Bytes: 0 Route Table Size (bytes): 10 Max. Done.jensd@jensds-MacBook-Air 22000.160_arm64_en-us_professional_fdb8a3c7_convert %

As a result, you should end up with an ISO file in the directory where you ran the script:

You can move this file anywhere you want as long as you remember where the next steps go.

Step 2) Download and install UTM

Now that we have the ISO that we will use to install Windows, we need to create a virtual machine to run the installer. There are several options available for this. The best known as Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Unfortunately, they are not free, but they should work. I'll go with UTM instead.

As mentioned at the beginning, UTM offers QEMU-based virtualization and emulation for IOS and macOS. I tried to find out what the UTM abbreviation stands for, but I couldn't find it.

You can download the UTM from Github with:https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/releases/latest/download/UTM.dmg

Once downloaded, simply open the .dmg file by double-clicking on it and use Finder to move UTM.app to the Applications folder:

Then launch UTM by simply running it like any other app on your Mac.

Step 3) Create a virtual machine to install Windows 11 ARM

At this point we already have the ISO file ready to install Windows and our UTM hypervisor. Now we need to create a new virtual machine with UTM for the next step.

Start UTM and click "Create a new virtual machine":

On the first tab: Info, choose a name for your VM and, optionally, a suitable icon:

Navigate to the second tab: System and select ARM64 (aarch64) as the architecture. This corresponds to the architecture of the M1 chip, so we are not using emulation. Set the Memory slider to at least 4 GB. I already realized that a little more is much better (here I took 6GB for example). Optionally click "Show advanced settings" and set a number of CPU cores (I chose 4 here) and enable "Force multicore":

Now navigate to the Disks tab, click New Disk and change the interface to NVMe and specify a size of at least 55 GB. Then click "New Drive" again, enable the switch option, and select "None (advanced)" as the interface:

Due to a problem/bug in QEMU, it is necessary to select None as the interface. I opened this from the github UTM page, but a solution is needed so far. Enter None to provide the necessary parameters to provide an interface to our virtual CD/DVD drive.

To do this, navigate to the QEMU tab and scroll down the list until you reach the last line that says New... and add two lines like this:

-deviceusb-storage,drive=drive1,removable=true,bootindex=1,bus=usb-bus.0

After all these steps, click save to create the new virtual machine in UTM.

All that remains is to mount the Windows 11 ARM installation ISO that we created in the first step in the VM. To do this, select the virtual machine you just created from the list and select Browse from the CD/DVD dropdown menu:

Then navigate to your Downloads folder (or whatever location you move the ISO file to later) and select the ISO created in step 1:

Step 4) Install Windows 11 ARM on your M1-based device

Now that we've created our virtual machine, let's start it and discuss installing Windows 11.

Start the VM by clicking on the big game icon (see the two images above). The virtual machine will start and you will see a large UTM logo.

Be sure to click on the virtual machine right away, as you'll be prompted to press a key to boot from the ISO:

After pressing any key, the installer will boot from the ISO, and if all goes well, you will be able to see the standard Windows 11 installer, where you can choose your language, regional settings, and keyboard:

Set them however you want and click Next.

On the next screen, we need to make a few changes before clicking "Install Now." Windows 11 has some strict requirements for the hardware it can run on. Since our Macbook and VM do not have Secure Boot or TPM, we need to fix this by adding some keys to the registry.

So, on the screen where you saw Install Now, press Shift + F10. You may need to use Fn+F10 depending on how you have configured your function keys. This should open a command prompt where we can open regedit:

In the registry editor, go to: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup and add a new key there called LabConfig. To do this, right-click Settings and select New > Key:

Name it LabConfig and right-click the key and choose New - DWORD (32-bit) Value:

Name this DWORD BypassTPMCheck. Repeat these steps a second time, but this time name it BypassSecureBootCheck. Then double click on each of these two DWORDs and change the value to 1. As a result, you should get the following:

Once this is done, we can close the registry editor and the command prompt that we opened and proceed with the installation by clicking on "Install now":

On the next few screens, choose: "I don't have a product key," accept the license, and choose: "Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)." You should end up with the question "Where do you want to install Windows?" Dialogue:

Here you can simply click Next and let the installer create the necessary volumes on the virtual disk we added in UTM. After that, Windows should copy the files to the drive and continue with the installation:

If you encounter a problem during "Get files read for installation" and the installer ends with an error like 0x800701B1 (Windows cannot install the necessary files. Make sure all the files necessary for the installation are available), restart the virtual machine and login again. This problem is the main reason for QEMU custom parameters for USB connected virtual CD/DVD drive. They seem to help, but the problem still occurs in some cases. Two tries max should get you normal.

Once all is done, the VM will reboot and you should receive the following dialog where you need to answer questions about location, keyboard layout, username, password, and privacy settings:

After answering the questions, the installation will be complete:

and you should end up with your new Windows 11 ARM desktop:

Step 5) Do some post-installation tasks

In the steps above, we achieved a working installation of Windows 11 on the M1-based device. However, if you do some research, you'll find that the system still doesn't work optimally. There is no network/internet connection and the resolution is stuck at 800 × 600.

Both of these issues can be resolved by installing SPICE Guest Tools and the QEMU drivers. They can be downloaded from the support area of ​​the UTM website:

Open your browser on macOS, go tohttps://mac.getutm.app/support/and download the guest tools and drivers:

Then, in UTM, go to your VM in the list, select it, and change the virtual CD/DVD drive ISO to the downloaded ISO:

Then navigate to the CD/DVD drive in your Windows 11 VM and run Spice-guest-tools.0.164 (or the version you downloaded):

After that, you will find that the network adapter is available and connected:

After this step, you can also change the resolution and size of the virtual machine. To do this, right-click on the desktop and select "Display settings". You will see that you now have an additional virtual screen. Here you need to scroll down and select "Show only in 1":

The screen will flicker and you should be getting better resolution by now. If prompted, choose to keep the changes. You can change the resolution to a higher value if you want, but there may be issues with a misaligned mouse pointer.

The best thing to do at this stage is to reboot. If you get stuck with the mouse, just press Alt+F4 and restart.

Step 6) Profit!

Using the VM directly may not feel as expected. It feels a bit bulky/slow, though performance really isn't that bad. In my opinion, it works much better if you enable Remote Desktop and connect to Microsoft Remote Desktop from macOS.

First, enable remote access on your VM:

Find the IP address your VM received. You can do this by opening a command prompt and running ipconfig or by using the configuration dialogs:

On macOS, install Microsoft Remote Desktop, you can find it in the App Store, and add a PC with the IP address you found (in my case 192.168.64.4):

Connect to the VM's IP address through Microsoft Remote Desktop and enter your Windows username and password. This will give you a beautiful Windows 11 full screen experience:

With a quick look at performance, with all 4 cores dedicated to the VM and 6 GB of RAM, the results I was able to get in some basic benchmarks are really above expectations.

I'll probably write another post that goes into some more depth on performance, but here's what I've seen, for example, for Geekbench 5, which I can test on native AArch64:

Browserbench also showed a good result:

As you can see, a machine with such results is certainly not a punishment for work.

While it takes a few steps and time, this process should get you a Windows 11 ARM-based VM on your M1-based device.