M1 (pro/max) parallels + visual studio

[JamesPet]

Hi,

I'm a heavy user of Parallels and (windows) Visual studio on my Mac 2019 (i9, 64b of ram).

I just purchased M1 Max and planing to use it moving forward. I really hope will gain a lot on performances, as at the moment running Parallels, two VSs and having 2 monitors attached is very often mission impossible. The fans are spinning crazy, I can't even have R# running as it slows down my mac that my refresh rate is 2 frames per second. If I detach external monitors it works faster but I want to work on 3 monitors

Does anyone have experience with a similar setup on M1? Do you need to install the ARM version of windows or do you use x64 in your Paralles? If you use the ARM version can you run normal apps like VS, MS SQL studio...

Also was trying to find comparison videos M1 Parallels vs Intel Parallels, but no luck so far, what is your experience?

thanks!

 

[Slartibart]

Microsoft provides a native build for Visual Studio. Of course wether this is useful depends on what your projects are.

Here you find a quite good summary/guide on how you run X86 in Parallels Desktop 17 with ARM version of Windows.

 

[mr_roboto]

You may want to consider cancelling your order if you depend that much on Windows.

The problem is that yes, you must install the Arm version of Windows. While it works, there is no way to do it legally. Microsoft does not sell Windows on Arm licenses to end users. Instead, they exclusively sell it through OEM licensing contracts - it's preloaded on the handful of Windows Arm computers being sold today.

The people who are doing it anyways are creating a Windows Insider account and pretending to own one of those Windows Arm computers in order to download preview (in-development) versions of Windows on Arm. Last month, Microsoft made a public statement to confirm that they do not support or license this. They haven't taken any steps to shut down easy public access to preview versions yet, but they could at any time, and it's definitely not legal.

For a professional who relies on Windows to do their work, it just isn't a good idea to go all-in on Apple Silicon yet. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

P.S. Another point is that when running x86 apps under Windows on Arm under Parallels on M1 Macs, you will be relying on Microsoft's x86 emulator rather than Apple's Rosetta 2. Apple gets to take advantage of custom extensions to their Arm processor cores which enhance x86 emulation speed, but Microsoft's emulator can only use standard Arm features and is not nearly as fast. So you might be disappointed in the performance of highly CPU intensive Windows apps that have not yet been ported to Arm.

 

[JamesPet]

Yes, I'm aware of VS for Mac but unfortunately, I still have some .net 4x apps

Has anyone successfully run VS2019 on m1

 

[matram]

The full Visual Studio is Intel only so I think you are out of luck if your target is developing for Windows or if you need x86 tools.

I am maintaining an old .NET application myself running VS Pro in a VM so I am very interested if anyone has any ideas how to handle this. For the moment my plan is just keeping my 2019 16” as long as it will last.

 

[JamesPet]

You may want to consider cancelling your order if you depend that much on Windows.

The problem is that yes, you must install the Arm version of Windows. While it works, there is no way to do it legally. Microsoft does not sell Windows on Arm licenses to end users. Instead, they exclusively sell it through OEM licensing contracts - it's preloaded on the handful of Windows Arm computers being sold today.

The people who are doing it anyways are creating a Windows Insider account and pretending to own one of those Windows Arm computers in order to download preview (in-development) versions of Windows on Arm. Last month, Microsoft made a public statement to confirm that they do not support or license this. They haven't taken any steps to shut down easy public access to preview versions yet, but they could at any time, and it's definitely not legal.

For a professional who relies on Windows to do their work, it just isn't a good idea to go all-in on Apple Silicon yet. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

P.S. Another point is that when running x86 apps under Windows on Arm under Parallels on M1 Macs, you will be relying on Microsoft's x86 emulator rather than Apple's Rosetta 2. Apple gets to take advantage of custom extensions to their Arm processor cores which enhance x86 emulation speed, but Microsoft's emulator can only use standard Arm features and is not nearly as fast. So you might be disappointed in the performance of highly CPU intensive Windows apps that have not yet been ported to Arm.

Yes, I'm just going through that rabbit hole . It looks like ARM is a deal breaker.

 

[JamesPet]

The full Visual Studio is Intel only so I think you are out of luck if your target is developing for Windows or if you need x86 tools.

I am maintaining an old .NET application myself running VS Pro in a VM so I am very interested if anyone has any ideas how to handle this. For the moment my plan is just keeping my 2019 16” as long as it will last.

I will be that person in 2 weeks time. I will install Windows 11, and try to use VS2019 with x64 compatibility support from windows 11. So I will let you know how it goes

 

[JamesPet]

Actually just came across this youtube channel

so it is possible, I'm really curious to see performances with new M1 Max. I'm planning once my new mac arrives to run a parallel test between 1m+ code project - build and run time on i9 Parallels x64 window and M1 Parallels ARM Windows

 

[matram]

Actually just came across this youtube channel

so it is possible, I'm really curious to see performances with new M1 Max. I'm planning once my new mac arrives to run a parallel test between 1m+ code project - build and run time on i9 Parallels x64 window and M1 Parallels ARM Windows

Unfortunately VS 2019 is a 32-bit application. I assume this will create some additional problems.

 

[JamesPet]

Unfortunately VS 2019 is a 32-bit application. I assume this will create some additional problems.

Actually, it's the opposite. Win 10 ARM was supporting 32bit apps for a very long time, they just started supporting 64bit apps in Jan 2021. There are a few videos, including this guy running on parallels 16.5 VS 2019 without any problem. I assume with parallels 17 and windows 11 who has better x32/x64 support should work even better.

Stay tuned

 

[Gnattu]

Unfortunately VS 2019 is a 32-bit application. I assume this will create some additional problems.

Windows' x86 emulation layer translates 32-bit x86 apps to arm64, so it is not the problem.

 

[matram]

Thank you for setting me straight!

 

[JamesPet]

Just spent the whole morning beeing hyped up to slammed down but I'm hyped out again

forward to 5th minute, guys is running Hitman game under ARM simulation so I'm hoping that VS 2019 performances are going to be ok

 

[JamesPet]

One more update from my side. I was trying to find some comparisons about Windows ARM and its speed. Apparently Microsoft Surface Pro (or some variation) comes with ARM Windows and although people were able to run VS 2019 - they were not able to debug . Very confusing, we will see once mine arrives.

In the meantime, @matram as an option can be a virtual machine on Azure (e.g. https://jan-v.nl/post/2020/developing-in-an-azure-virtualmachine/ ) I did some calculations and 32GB ram 8 cores machine costs $60 for 8hx20 days, which is not that bad at all

 

[crazy dave]

This guy had a couple of tips:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1450440128799838216

 

[bobcomer]

One more update from my side. I was trying to find some comparisons about Windows ARM and its speed. Apparently Microsoft Surface Pro (or some variation) comes with ARM Windows and although people were able to run VS 2019 - they were not able to debug . Very confusing, we will see once mine arrives.

In the meantime, @matram as an option can be a virtual machine on Azure (e.g. https://jan-v.nl/post/2020/developing-in-an-azure-virtualmachine/ ) I did some calculations and 32GB ram 8 cores machine costs $60 for 8hx20 days, which is not that bad at all

Surface Pro X

 

[tomotakaoka]

I am waiting M1 Max Macbook Pro too. Although I will keep my windows machine but will test out running windows Visual Studio 2019.

Other than using arm Windows, I will try UTM too.

UTM and QEMU behind it would run Intel Windows so once windows run, SQL Server and Visual Studio should run. I am not sure how good it is performance wise, it is still good as back up PC.

UTM

Securely run operating systems on your Mac

mac.getutm.app

 

[ADGrant]

One more update from my side. I was trying to find some comparisons about Windows ARM and its speed. Apparently Microsoft Surface Pro (or some variation) comes with ARM Windows and although people were able to run VS 2019 - they were not able to debug . Very confusing, we will see once mine arrives.

In the meantime, @matram as an option can be a virtual machine on Azure (e.g. https://jan-v.nl/post/2020/developing-in-an-azure-virtualmachine/ ) I did some calculations and 32GB ram 8 cores machine costs $60 for 8hx20 days, which is not that bad at all

VS2019 is 32bit but the debugger is probably 64bit. It would have to be to debug 64bit apps.

 

[JamesPet]

but Windows 10 ARM and Win 11 both support 64bit x64 apps now. It's so strange that there are not that many resources on the internet. I'm sure this is significantly going to change as more and more devs will move to the new chips

 

[matram]

One more update from my side. I was trying to find some comparisons about Windows ARM and its speed. Apparently Microsoft Surface Pro (or some variation) comes with ARM Windows and although people were able to run VS 2019 - they were not able to debug . Very confusing, we will see once mine arrives.

In the meantime, @matram as an option can be a virtual machine on Azure (e.g. https://jan-v.nl/post/2020/developing-in-an-azure-virtualmachine/ ) I did some calculations and 32GB ram 8 cores machine costs $60 for 8hx20 days, which is not that bad at all

I have considered setting up a Amazon EC2 instance for VS, cost is probably not an issue as VS is used only for occasional maintenance.

At the moment I am in a wait and see mode. For me the problem is not urgent having a 2019 MBP plus a 2016 model as back up. I am curious about what MS will do with Win 11 on ARM.

 

[bobcomer]

but Windows 10 ARM and Win 11 both support 64bit x64 apps now. It's so strange that there are not that many resources on the internet. I'm sure this is significantly going to change as more and more devs will move to the new chips

They haven't sold that many of them...

 

[JamesPet]

Hi guys

a quick update from my side. The machine has arrived: Max 16" 32 cores, 64GB of ram.

I've installed the latest version of Parallels and the Windows 11 ARM version. Both VS2019 and MSSQL management studio I manage to run. VS2019 has a warning that it's not optimized for ARM but it runs.

I've successfully connected to a SQL standalone server and MS Azure database via studio no issues at all, didn't notice any speed lack.

Most important I successfully opened and run an ASP.net project .net framework 4.6 - everything is working. I will do later comparisons in terms of how fast was it. But what I noticed so far: no fun noise at all, the machine is cold- to a mild worm, no lagging between jumping from parallels to mac

stay tuned

 

[ultrakyo]

Hi guys

a quick update from my side. The machine has arrived: Max 16" 32 cores, 64GB of ram.

I've installed the latest version of Parallels and the Windows 11 ARM version. Both VS2019 and MSSQL management studio I manage to run. VS2019 has a warning that it's not optimized for ARM but it runs.

I've successfully connected to a SQL standalone server and MS Azure database via studio no issues at all, didn't notice any speed lack.

Most important I successfully opened and run an ASP.net project .net framework 4.6 - everything is working. I will do later comparisons in terms of how fast was it. But what I noticed so far: no fun noise at all, the machine is cold- to a mild worm, no lagging between jumping from parallels to mac

stay tuned

Great stuff. Would like to know if you can access facetime camera and microphone from .Net app. Also any compile issue? Does WinForm Designer working?

 

[matram]

Thanks for the update. Are you using any plugins with VS or using it ”plain”.

 

[TiggrToo]

Hi guys

a quick update from my side. The machine has arrived: Max 16" 32 cores, 64GB of ram.

I've installed the latest version of Parallels and the Windows 11 ARM version. Both VS2019 and MSSQL management studio I manage to run. VS2019 has a warning that it's not optimized for ARM but it runs.

I've successfully connected to a SQL standalone server and MS Azure database via studio no issues at all, didn't notice any speed lack.

Most important I successfully opened and run an ASP.net project .net framework 4.6 - everything is working. I will do later comparisons in terms of how fast was it. But what I noticed so far: no fun noise at all, the machine is cold- to a mild worm, no lagging between jumping from parallels to mac

stay tuned

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