Users who own a Mac machine with an Apple M1 chip and are eager to dual-boot Windows 11 will be disappointed to learn that Microsoft has stated that running the upcoming operating system on an M1-based machine is "an unsupported scenario" both in Parallel Desktop and on the hardware itself. They will be disappointed to learn that Microsoft has stated that running the upcoming operating system on an M1-based machine is "not a supported scenario" either in Parallel Desktop or on the hardware itself.

This does not mean that Mac users are stuck with macOS. This statement, originally made to The Register, simply means that this OS will not be supported in any official capacity. This could be a headache for Mac owners who insist on running the OS down the road.

For starters, if you encounter any problems with Windows 11 on your M1 Mac and decide to contact Microsoft support, you will likely be told that it is your responsibility to fix the problem. Furthermore, future updates to Windows 11 do not take M1 Macs into account, so it is quite possible that future software patches will cause unexpected problems for users running the OS on a Mac.

Of course, just because Windows 11 is not officially supported on M1 Macs does not mean that the OS cannot be accessed through virtualization solutions such as Parallel Desktop; Microsoft has ISO images of Windows on ARM but you can obtain a VHDX file for the Windows Insider Preview Build, which can be used to run Windows 11 on Parallels on the M1 Mac. However, as mentioned above, it is not officially supported.

And because of the lack of official support, problems are already beginning to surface. Last week, while running a Windows 11 virtual machine using Parallels Desktop 17 on an M1 Mac, a hardware compatibility error occurred in the Dev Channel Windows Insider build. Parallels immediately patched this issue and the issue appears to be resolved for now.

Microsoft's stance on Mac support may eventually change, especially if there is enough demand from Apple users who want to run Windows 11 on their devices. But at least in the short term, if you want to play with the latest version of Microsoft's world's most popular operating system on your M1 Mac, you will need to be fairly tech savvy.