How to install a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on an M1 Mac for free

Without running Parallels and using the offical Windows 11 ARM insider preview

Introduction

I wrote an article a few monthas ago detailing how to install Windows 10 ARM on an M1 Mac for free (using UTM and not Parallels.) Since then Microsoft released an insider preview version of Windows 11 ARM and I wanted to try it out on my Mac. There were plenty of articles showing ways of installing using a leaked ISO and the Intel version, but I couldn’t see anything for installing on UTM using the ARM version.

After a lot of research and many failed installation attempts, I’ve managed to install the preview version on my M1 Mac and it’s working! From my initial brief exploration of the new OS, it appears to run quicker than Windows 10 and is certainly enough to familiarise yourself with this new Microsoft OS.

Windows 11 Running on my M1 Macbook Air

High-Level Steps Involved

I’m going to go into the specific steps of what you need to do in order to get Windows 11 ARM up and running with an M1 Mac, but if you don’t want to read through the details, the main steps are listed below.

1. Download the Windows 11 ARM Inside Preview
2. Convert the image to be qcow2 image format using QEMU
3. Install UTM for MacOS
4. Configure a new Virtual Machine for Windows 11
   a) CPU ARM64 with 8 Cores
   b) 8GB RAM
   c) HDD at 80GB type NVMe
5. Boot Windows 11 VM
   a) Change display in BIOS to 1074x768
   b) Install Windows 11
   c) Install Spice Tools

Detailed Setup Instructions

Download the image

To download the image, you need to be a member of the Microsoft Insider Program, which is free to join. To get the image, go to this URL:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewARM64

Click Sign in and either login (or sign up) and download the image, which will be a VHDX file. This is designed to be ran on Hyper-V, but we can convert this image so that I can run on UTM using some command tools.

Install the VM Tools for MacOS

1. Install MTU Get the latest version of MTU from mac.getutm.app. The version from the App Store is the same but costs $10 If you’re not aware, UTM is a free virtualization platform that is based on the open-source platform QEMU. This is basically a GUI-based version of QEMU.

2. Install QEMU using Homebrew — Even though we are using MTU, we need to install QEMU so that we can convert the format of the Windows 11 image. If you have Homebrew installed then skip to the last point, but if not these are the steps you need to follow:

i) In terminal run

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

ii) This will install Homebrew but you need to run two additional commands

echo ‘eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)’ >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile

eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)

iii) Homebrew will now be installed and you can installed QEMU from terminal

brew install qemu

Convert the Image to qcow2

In order to make the VHDX image from Microsoft compatible with UTM we need to convert the format. To do this we use qemu that we installed earlier. From Terminal run the following command:

qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 /Users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX /users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_21354.qcow2

*Please make sure you change the path in the command to the location of where your VHDX file is and where you want the output to be. You may also need to update the file name as at the time of writing this article the latest insider preview version for ARM is 21354

Create the Windows 11 Virtual Machine

This took me ages to get the right configuration for UTM to work, because it wasn’t the same process as for Windows 10. Within UTM create a New Virtual Machine named Windows 11 and change the settings listed below.

System
Architecture: ARM64 (aarch64)
System: QEMU 5.2 ARM Virtual Machine (virt-5.2)
Memory: 8192MB
Select Show Advanced Settings
CPU: Default
CPU Cores: 8
Select Force Mutlicore

Drives
Import Drive → Select Windows 11 qcow2 image
Interface: NVMe
New Drive → Removable Drive

UTM Drives Configuration

Once you’ve made these changes, click save and you should see your virtual machine in the main UTM screen.

UTM Drivers

We need to load the drivers for UTM in Windows 11 to allow Windows 11 to access the Mac network adapters.

Download the Spice Guest Tools here: https://mac.getutm.app/support/

Add the ISO to the CD Rom Drive in UTM, by clicking on the drive then browsing to the ISO. You should now be ready to boot the virtual machine!

UTM Tips

UTM is great and as I mentioned before, it’s free! If you’ve used VMware or VirtualBox, you’ll find that it’s not quite as east to use, especially when switching in and out of the virtual environment. The main features you will need, even during set up are:

Escape Keys — Control + Option gets you out of the virtual machine

Capture Mouse Cursor Button — According to the UI holding down control + Option does the same, but this button is different. When you press it, your cursor in your main OS moves to where the cursor should be in the VM. This is huge and really does make UTM a lot more usable

Booting the Virtual Machine

Before booting to Windows 11, it’s highly recommended to change the screen resolution, otherwise the VM doesn’t always load. On 1st Boot, click immediately in the window and hold down the Escape Key to access the BIOS.

Now Select Device Manager → OVMF Platform Configuration

Change Preferred Resolution for Next Boot to be 1024x768 and then select Commit Changes and Exit

Then Exit the BIOS by pressing ESC, then hit continue and press return on the first screen.

Windows Setup

If you followed all of the above steps, then Windows 11 will now boot and you have to proceed with the setup process

Windows 11 Setup

Setup your region and keyboard and you’ll then move on to the Network Connection Screen. Windows 11 won’t recognize your Network card until we install the Spice Guest Tools for UTM

Click I don’t have Internet → Continue with Limited Setup → Accept the License Agreement

Then follow the prompts for your account setup and then choose your Privacy Settings (FYI I turn all the setting off, but it’s up to you.)

Windows will now finish the final phase of setup and you will be presented with the screen below. Just be prepared that it does take a couple of minutes to complete this step.

Configuring Internet Access

To get the most out of Windows 11, you’re going to need Internet access. To do this, go to File Explorer in Windows, select the CD Drive (should be d:\) and run the Spice Guest Tools Application. Once the installer has finished, you will now have a working network adapter within your VM and will be able to use the Internet.

Conclusion

This was not easy to setup, but I hope the guide was useful for you. I initially was able to get Windows 11 working using an earlier build that I had to compile myself, but I wanted to share this once the official ARM Beta was released in either a VHDX or ISO format.Windows 11 ARM is not the fastest on an M1 Mac, but it’s usable enough to get an idea of what the new Windows OS is like. Incidently, I found Windows 10 ARM to be faster than Windows 11 ARM on my Mac. I’d love to get your feedback on the guide and if this worked for you.

Bonus

If you found this story useful, please leave a comment, I’m trying to grow my writing and I’d like to know if this was useful. If you don’t have time for that, please at least give me a clap,or better still, hold down your mouse button on the clap to give 50! (it’s free!!!)