While M1 Macs offer plenty of bang for the buck, they do not support BootCamp, meaning it is not possible to run Windows on them. It was expected that Microsoft would add support for M1 Macs in Windows 11 via virtualization or otherwise. However, that’s not going to happen.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to The Register that the company won’t support running Windows 11 natively or through virtualization on M1 Macs.

Many M1 Mac owners have used Parallels to run virtualized builds of Windows 10 and 11. However, it looks like Microsoft might soon put an end to this route. Many users have already started receiving hardware compatibility errors while running an Insider build of Windows 11 on Parallels 17. A bug-fixing Parallels v17.0.1 update does seem to fix the issue, but it’s unclear how long this method will work.

Parallels heavily advertised the ability to run Windows 10 on M1 Macs last year. Given the current scenario, though, it looks like Microsoft could soon pull the plug on this functionality.

Last year, Apple’s SVP Craig Federighi said it is “really up to Microsoft” to bring Windows to M1 Macs. Unlike Intel-based Macs, M1 Macs use a special Arm chip from Apple. Due to this, they are not compatible with the regular x86 version of Windows. This is also why Apple dropped BootCamp support in M1 Macs.

For now, it looks like that if you want to run Windows on your Mac, your best bet would be to simply buy an Intel-based Mac or an old Windows laptop.