Windows guests

Windows VMs run Windows 11 for Arm (ARM64) on Elyra VM's own engine, a virtual machine monitor on Apple's Hypervisor framework, with the firmware, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot Windows 11 asks for: Setup runs from Microsoft's ISO as on a PC. They need macOS 15 or later.

Licence

Windows needs a licence of your own. Elyra VM doesn't sell or activate Windows. Microsoft names Parallels Desktop as its authorized way to run Windows 11 for Arm on Apple silicon; Elyra VM, like VMware Fusion and UTM, runs it outside that authorization.

Installing

1. In the library, + › Windows 11. Elyra VM says where Microsoft gives out Windows 11 for Arm64 (and opens the page): download the ISO there, choose it, and the VM is made from it. An ISO you have already, with "win" in its name, works through From an IPSW or ISO….
2. Start the VM. "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD" is answered for you, and Windows Setup runs as on a PC: language, licence, disk, then its own setup of your account.
3. When Windows is installed, install Elyra VM Tools.

Windows sees a VM with 4 processors and 4 GB of memory by default, a 64 GB disk, a TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot with Microsoft's keys; change them in its settings while it is shut down.

Elyra VM Tools

Every Windows VM has a drive named ELYRA VM TOOLS (D:). Open it in File Explorer and run Install Elyra VM Tools; Windows asks to let it change the computer. It installs a service that starts with Windows, an agent in your session, and, when the disc carries it, virtio-win's display driver. With it, the VM gets:

• Commands and a terminal from the Mac: elyravm exec, elyravm shell (PowerShell), and AI agents.
• The clipboard both ways: text, formatted text, pictures and files.
• Shared folders, as the drive Mac in File Explorer (VM settings).
• Files dropped on the window, into your Downloads; elyravm cp and send.
• Its clock set when it starts and resumes.
• A display that follows the window, with the display driver.

Elyra VM updates the agent itself when a newer one comes with the app.

The display

Until the display driver is in, Windows shows 1440 × 900, scaled to the window. With it (installed by Elyra VM Tools, when the app was built with it, see Building), Windows has a second display, the VM's own: Elyra VM Tools makes it Windows' only one (as Second screen only would, kept for the next start), at the window's size in points (1440 × 900 for a new window), so that its text is as large as the Mac's. It follows the window as you resize it. Until Elyra VM Tools has done so, the window shows the first display.

Sound, microphone and camera

Windows has a USB sound device of Elyra VM's: what it plays comes out of the Mac's speakers. With the microphone allowed in the VM's settings, it hears the Mac's microphone; with the camera allowed, it sees the Mac's camera as a USB webcam (640 × 480 or 1280 × 720). macOS asks you once for each.

Network

The VM shares the Mac's network (NAT), and keeps its address from one start to the next. Forwarded ports reach it from the Mac, or from your network. Windows' firewall still decides what it answers.

Disk images as USB disks

elyravm attach <vm> <image> plugs a disk image into a running Windows VM as a USB disk, and detach pulls it out (Running VMs). The Mac's own USB devices can't be passed through.

Nested virtualization

On a Mac with an M3 or later, Nested virtualization in the VM's settings gives Windows the processor's virtualization, for WSL 2 and Hyper-V. Turn on Virtual Machine Platform in Windows (Windows Features, or wsl --install) after. A VM with it shuts down rather than suspends.

Suspending and snapshots

A Windows VM suspends and is snapshot as other VMs are, running or not, and carries on from where it was in a second or two. Not while disk images are plugged in, or with nested virtualization.

Disk space

The VM's disk takes room on the Mac only as Windows fills it, and gives it back as Windows frees it: files deleted are trimmed (Windows does so on its own, and Optimize Drives at once), and the Mac has their room again.

Shutting down

The window's close button, Shut Down and elyravm stop press the VM's power button: Windows shuts down as from its Start menu. Logging out of the Mac, or restarting it, asks the same, and waits for Windows to shut down. Force Stop turns it off at once: what isn't saved is lost, and Windows may go to repair the next time it starts (choose Continue there).