Apple launched its new M3 processors in November of last year. Now, just a couple of months later, there’s an official support document about how to run Windows 11 on MacBooks and other Macs with M3-series chips.
Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise can now be installed within a virtual machine on M3 Macs through Parallels Desktop. Specifically, Parallels Desktop 18 and 19 can work with M-series processors.
Support for M3 chips actually became available in November 2023 when the processors launched, but there’s now a Microsoft support document about it.
Apple shifted away from Intel chips years ago, so there’s a good chance if you’re running a Mac in 2024 it has an M-series processor. That’s largely a good thing, since Apple has an incredible reputation regarding its processors.
For a niche of users, the only “excuse” remaining may have been needing to use Parallels Desktop to run Windows on a Mac. While Alludo, the makers of Parallels Desktop, added support for M1 and M2 chips last year, some holdouts may have stuck with Intel-powered Macs until now.
Apple takes many of the lessons it learns from making iPhones to improve its processor designs. For example, the M3 chips are the first computers to use the 3-nanometer build process. That process was used on the iPhone 15 Pro before being used to make M3 chips.
