Update to Windows on ARM on Mac
So it’s been six months since I last talked about windows on ARM on M1 Mac, and not much has changed, and it has been kind of frustrating to say the least.
During these past 6 months, Microsoft has promised a commitment to ARM and in doing so has finally produced a native ARM version of Visual Studio 2022, which upon my initial testing appears to be a strong successor to the previous suppressed x86 which relied on heavy code translation.
With this commitment comes the new Project Volterra, a developer kit ARM desktop PC, which looks similar to a Mac Mini. It boasts a new processor built by Qualcomm that features a neural processing unit (NPU) and a stackable design. Only time will tell where Microsoft is going to go with this, but so far I have high hopes..
Furthermore, since I last wrote, Microsoft has introduced IIS into Windows on ARM, albeit only in the beta version at the time of writing. It does not appear to be any different from the version on x86 Windows machines, and works as expected.
As a developer that uses older Microsoft technologies including Classic ASP and VBScript, the database is an intricate part of the development workflow. I’ve tried installing SQL Server on Windows on ARM without success, even older versions. Again, as of writing, Microsoft has not created a version of SQL Server for Windows on ARM, and without it, my workflow is broken. Yeah, I can use MySQL or another database solutions, but the majority of my clients rely on SQL Server for their data storage needs.
I am now left in a dilemma, do I wait for Microsoft to produce SQL-Server on ARM, or do I continue to use my PC laptop on my Mac Mini via Remote Desktop? I am leaning towards the latter, continuing to use my old PC even though it is outdated, which is not upgradeable to Windows 11, and wait to see what Microsoft will do. For the moment the old PC does what I need, but I preferably want an all-in-one solution (eg everything on Mac). Another consideration is RAM on my Mac Mini is. It is maxed out at 16Gb, and I can assign 8Gb of RAM to Windows 11 via Parallels. The question is, is 8Gb enough for MacOS and is 8Gb enough for Windows 11? What are your thoughts on this? Leave your comments below.
Another piece of news happened Wednesday, ARM64EC released, which allows:
developers to build applications with a combination of x64 and ARM code. For example, the bulk of an app could run natively on ARM code, while a few extensions or specific features could rely on x64 code running through emulation. The end result is better app performance on Windows 11 on ARM devices.
It shows you that Microsoft is working diligently towards this push to ARM and it is serious about it direction. It is very encouraging. I wait with bated breath to see what happens next.
That is all this week, I hope to post more in the coming weeks, so please stay tuned, share with your friends, and follow me on Scoping-Tech Medium page, and read my other articles.
Many thanks
Paul Jacobs — August 12, 2022 — scoping-tech.com
