Despite hardware limits, Parallels supports running Windows on MacBook Neo

"8GB unified memory is the minimum practical configuration."

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[Architect_of_Insanity]

I ran Win11 in a VM on my OG M1 MacBook Pro with only 8GB of RAM and it ran very well. I needed it run Visio so on top of Win Arm running in a VM, it was also doing x86 to ARM translation in Windows.

It was actually usable and could open, edit, and export rather large files without much ado.

 

[Architect_of_Insanity]

Thanks for adding this to the conversation; I’m going to give it a try on mine. With only a 256GB hard drive, did you need to install Windows on an external drive? I’m recently retired doing a little contract work on the side and this would be a cheaper solution than buying a second laptop.

No, just ran a very small Windows install and minimized the swap size. 6GB of RAM and 4 CPU ran like a champ and didn't tank the Mac either. Optimize it as much as you can by disabling all of the shiny effects, dump the bloat, and disable services you're not using like OneDrive and Teams. There are scripts you can run to help you with decluttering Windows.

 

[Architect_of_Insanity]

I wonder if running x86 Windows in a VM and the running x86 software is slower or faster than running ARM Windows and then x86 software.

To run Windows on a modern Mac with Parallels it requires the ARM version of Windows. I don't think you can fully emulate x86 on an Apple silicon Mac to make Windows x86 run - but I never underestimate the hacker mentality to make it work somehow.