Running Windows on Your Mac with the M1 Chip: A Step-by-Step Guide

Are you excited to run Windows on your new Mac with the M1 chip? With Parallels Desktop, you can easily set up a virtual machine and enjoy the best of both worlds. In this article, we'll walk you through the process of enabling nested virtualization and setting up your virtual machine.

Enabling Nested Virtualization

Note that nested virtualization is currently not supported for the Apple hypervisor. To enable it, follow these steps:

1. Open the virtual machine configuration > Hardware > CPU & Memory, click Advanced, and set the hypervisor to Parallels.

2. Make sure that the virtual machine is shut down.

Setting Up Your Virtual Machine

To set up your virtual machine, follow these steps:

1. If it is in a suspended state, please run it and then shut down (Actions > Shut Down).

2. The transition to Mac with the M1 chip should be smooth for most Mac applications, thanks to Rosetta technology.

Performance Considerations

It's worth noting that enabling nested virtualization significantly affects the performance of a virtual machine. However, Parallels is excited to see the performance, power efficiency, and virtualization features that are brought to the Mac with the Apple M1 chip.

Supported Virtualization Platforms

The list of supported virtualization platforms (such as Hyper-V) is available in KB 123975. Nested virtualization is available in Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro and Business Editions only.

Gaming on Your M1 Mac

Back in August, we tested games in Parallels Desktop, a popular virtualization platform. Gaming through virtualization on an Apple Silicon Mac is getting better with every M1 Mac release from the company.

Overall, setting up Windows on your Mac with the M1 chip using Parallels Desktop is a straightforward process. With these steps and some caution regarding performance considerations, you can enjoy the best of both worlds - macOS and Windows on one machine.

Parallels on m1