Does Apple Silicon Mac allow booting Windows from an external drive?

General
1

I want to upgrade my 27’’ iMac to an Apple Silicon-based Mac Studio. But I heard that the M series prevents one from running Windows.

My work needs both macOS and Windows. So I want to know whether it’s possible to run Windows from an external drive connected to the Mac Studio like I’ve been doing for the past 3 years with my iMac.

I’m aware that I can install Windows on a virtual machine. But it’s not the best option for me since VMware or Parallels can’t run many Windows apps.

Thanks in advance for any help!

2

Unfortunately, you can’t directly install Windows on an external drive and then boot from it to run Windows natively on an Apple Silicon Mac.

Here are the reasons why it won’t work:

  • Boot Camp Assistant, which allows Intel Macs to dual-boot Windows and macOS, is not availlable on Apple Silicon Macs.
  • Although there’s a version of Windows for ARM processors, Microsoft doesn’t officially support installing it on an Apple Silicon Mac.
  • ARM version of Windows requires specific drivers for the Mac’s hardware components, which are not currently provided.
3

Installing Windows on a virtual machine is the only way. I suppose you could save the Windows virtual machine on your external drive to access the system externally.

Read the article below to learn how to install Windows on a virtual machine like Parallels Desktop.

How to run Windows on M1 Mac?