Installing Windows on your Mac
Option 1: Virtualization
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All Macs
- Either VMware Fusion Pro (free for personal use) or Parallels (Pro Edition) ($60/year for students) will do the job nicely.
- Opinion: As of July 2024, Parallels has the edge in the "ease of use" category for Macs with Apple Silicon processors, but Fusion has gotten much better in recent releases.
- You will need a better-than-average Mac in order for virtualization software to run at acceptable speeds, i.e. plenty of free disk space, lots of memory (32 GB or more is best), and a high-speed processor with lots of cores.
- Either VMware Fusion Pro (free for personal use) or Parallels (Pro Edition) ($60/year for students) will do the job nicely.
Option 2: Boot Camp
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Intel Macs
- Boot Camp is still a feature of macOS, but only for Macs with Intel processors.
- Apple no longer sells Macs with Intel processors, but there are still a lot of them in use, so Boot Camp will still be a viable option for little while longer.
- Apple only officially supports installing Windows version 10 via Boot Camp, and Windows 10 will reach its end of life in October 2025.
- Boot Camp is still a feature of macOS, but only for Macs with Intel processors.
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Apple Silicon Macs
- Boot Camp is not an option.
Notes
- You don't have to own a Windows 11 license. There are just a few limitations to running windows without one. Learn more »
- Be aware that there are some documented limitations in ArcGIS when running it inside a Windows emulator. See the "Known Limitations" section at the bottom of this page.