Hi everyone,
I am pumped! After selling my m1 MB air several years ago due to financial hardship, I've been kicking myself for it for years. Mac OS on an intel mac was okay, but a bit slow, and I got the chance to trade the 2018 Air with a friend for an ElBraille, which I mostly wanted for the focus. With the 2018 Macbook Air, Bootcamp was nice, but it was also enough of a pain that I often just found myself sticking to Windows. However, for all its flaws, I still absolutely love Mac OS. I much prefer email management on anything Apple compared to Thunderbird or Windows Mail. Audio editting is so nice on the mac. I can still do it on Windows, but on the mac I feel like my work is just a bit better. I say all of this, because today I came across one heck of a deal, an m1 MB Air, for $400. Same exact specs as what I had before, 8 gb ram, 256 gb storage. While I do have concerns about only 8 gb of ram, and splitting that between Mac OS and Windows, I remember UTM working pretty well, and I would hope that the bugs I did have back then have been worked out. Last time I used it was back in 2021. Can anyone specifically using UTM give me any info on how the newer versions are doing? One thing that was incredibly frustrating before was that the computer would glitch, audio would just get stuck, and the only way to fix was to restart the VM.
How do you have your virtual machines configured?
I am not, nor have I ever been, a crazy multi-tasker. In Windows, even on my Dell, with an i7 and 16 gb of ram, I may have three programs open tops, not including NVDA. I'll usually run Radioboss, the software I use for broadcasting, Notepad for show notes, and maybe one or two tabs in Edge.
When I am in Windows on the Macbook, I do not plan on doing absolutely anything else on the mac side itself. While broadcasting, I won't be in Safari or anything like that.
So, what is the max ram and processor config you would recommend to give me the best performance in Windows while I have that loaded up?
I know about sharpkeys for key remapping, and will have to do that for things like the regular insert, but did anyone ever get caps lock as NVDA key in UTM? I remember that was one of the few things that used to drive me nuts!
Lastly, are you able to pair a bluetooth device, like a Braille display, only with the VM, or do you absolutely have to pair it with the host in order to get it to work?
I expect to get the Macbook next week, and am just trying to prepare myself and refresh my memory ahead of time.
Comments
I had this exact audio…
I had this exact audio problem you described last time I tried utm 2-3 months ago. Vmware fusion is so much better, I pretty much abandoned utm after exploring vmware on mac for the first 5 minutes. It just works, the windows vm are more stable and almost more responsive...
@TheBllindGuy07
Thank you for this! Back when I last used it, UTM was the only accessible app for running a vm. I had no desire to mess with Paralels and VOCR. I have had experience with VMware in the past though, and yeah back in the intel days it was pretty good.
So, what is your vm config for ram and processor?
I wish that someone would give us an arm64 image
I lost my utm vm and can't reinstall it due to some circumstances, and I need it.
could someone make a vm disk with installed windows and NVDA?
Just wanted to say thanks…
Just wanted to say thanks again for recommending VMWare instead of UTM. While I found that with only 8 gb of ram, and splitting that down the middle did not leave Windows enough to work with for live broadcasting of both audio and video, and I ended up being better served by taking my online radio station out of the cloud and putting all the automation for it back on a desktop computer in studio, the VM is great for using NVDA remote to manage that desktop, as well as for remote voice tracking, meaning I can go in remotely and switch up the tracks in the playlist for a given hour and then record my spoken parts for a program, and the software then mixes things in such a way that it sounds like a live program even though it was prerecorded. So, while I can't really do much in the way of live broadcasting on the mac, other tasks on the VM work incredibly well, and I have found the VM to be very stable. Had I been able to get a machine with 16 gb ram, I have no doubt that I could have done live broadcasting in a Windows VM no problem. But 4 gb just isn't enough. I tried it once or twice, and it just couldn't handle it. But my experience on a Windows laptop wouldn't have been any better really.
Revisiting this in 2025
For anyone interested, I just wanted to provide an update on this in 2025. Before I start, let me say that your milage may vary.
I had, as my previous post stated, installed VMWare, gotten Windows up and running on it, put it through its paces, and it worked decent, for a bit. I think one of the things I did wrong was switching to the insider program, to take advantage of better compatibility with x86 programs that was supposed to be better in those builds. After that, I started having all kinds of issues. NVDA wouldn't update properly, weird issues with programs not being able to write to disk, just all kinds of odd behavior. It got to the point I just ended up buying a cheapo laptop, because I just got sick of trying to run everything virtually.
I still have that other laptop, but after a bit, having to switch back and forth between the two, and not being able to just do it all on one machine got old. So, about a week ago, I decided to give virtual machines another shot. I didn't want to fuss with finding the download for vmware again, so just downloaded UTM from the app store, since I'd already purchased it years ago.
I was able to get the VM up and running with a little help from Be My AI, and after a bit, I plugged in a headset, and got sound. I could have had it all along, but didn't think I would, so didn't bother with it for a bit, but snapping pics and waiting on Be My AI to do its thing got old, so decided to give it a try. Got Windows installed, NVDA installed, and it really does work well. While I do have NVDA die on me every once in a while, I can't say it happens any more than on my VMWare instance, or even the dedicated cheapo laptop for that matter. I don't have audio completely die, or the whole VM lock up like I did back in 2021. Over all, it seems incredibly stable, and over all I also like the UTM interface more.
The only real annoyance is caps lock not working as NVDA key, no matter what I've done. Karabiner doesn't seem to fix it like it did with VMWare. I've checked and unchecked the "use caps lock as a normal key" option in UTM, with little luck. I did stumble on a combination that allowed caps lock to work as NVDA key, but caps lock would then become sticky. So, if pressed, until pressed again, any commands you would try to use acted as if you were also still pressing caps lock. You can probably see how that could be an issue. So, I've had to use the grave accent key for NVDA.
Other than that one annoyance, I am quite happy with how well UTM is working.
If you didn't make the mistake I did with VMWare, and install insider builds on your VM, and VMWare is still working for you, I would say just stick with that. But if anyone should happen to find this thread, and be wondering if UTM is still a good option, I'm happy to report that it is, and I actually like the interface better.
Hope this helps someone out.
Thanks for the Update
Now I am considering UTM again. The last time I tried it it was clunky and I could not pass the setup screen. hope things are different now.
question
Hi,
Question: after you install windows and startup the VM from within UTM, what sound driver does it use? and are you able to start Narrator on windows setup? also, how do you use the grave axcent key in UTM?
Sharpkeys
Hey,
I forget exactly which sound driver it uses by default, but I set it to use the one from spice guest tools. For using the grave accent, you need to set that up in Sharpkeys, remapping it to insert. Sorry, I could've probably been more specific.
Getting the ARM ISO
I am trying to download the ISO but I am getting some weird error message when downloading from Microsoft site, it says: leveraging anonymous or location hiding technologies when connecting to this service is not generally allowed.
I am not using any VPN and I have tried this on both Windows and Mac. I am getting the same error message. Any idea how to download it?
@Maldalain
Edit: Rewriting this after doing some research.
Apparently the Microsoft download site has issues with a number of things, including:
1. Apple's iCloud relay
2. VPNs
3. Certain Cellular Broadband services
Originally I said this might be a geo-political thing, but one of the links I am providing below is from a Windows user in florida, who also encountered this error.
Here are a few links with more information on this issue.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255660396?sortBy=rank
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/i-can-not-download-windows-11-due-to-a-error/6fc27a1c-e3f6-4367-8abb-11143d63d70d
https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/217149-why-am-i-unable-download-any-windows-iso-file-microsoft.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsinsiders/comments/11adzly/forbidden_from_downloading_windows_11_insider/
@Maldalain
I came across this myself. After some digging... if you have it on, pause private relay in iCloud, and reload the page, this will fix it.
It workd but
Hi,
It worked, but however, I couldn't get narrator to run during setup. When I pressed Command plus Control Plus enter, it didn't do anything, nothing at all. the windows setup did load without any errors by holding down enter apon starting the virtual machine. I guess I could use apple coraudio, but IDK if I should use standard earphones plug directly into the headphone port. Any thoughts?
Private Relay
It is off and I am still unable to download the ARM.
It is working but ...
It worked for me. I downloaded the ISO and got the whole thing setup. I got NVDA to work. However I restarted the VM and NVDA starts normally, yet it seems like my screen is blank, NVDA only announces its menus and so on, desktop is announced wiht no icons. I can not open the start and do all other things. Any idea what is going wrong now? I do not want to reinstall the whole thing again!
A couple of (possible) fixes
I found some information on Reddit about this, but to summarize, it looks like you may have to uninstall updates, and reinstall the guest tools, then reset the VM. You should not have to reinstall windows or anything, just the guest tools, and then later on the windows updates.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1dk7z45/windows_11_vm_on_utm_black_screen_after_software/
HTH.
Wow, the behavior with NVDA…
Wow, the behavior with NVDA is odd. I've never had that happen. Definitely not cool.
As far as core audio, I think it is fine to at least get you up and running, but later you'll want to switch it if you plan on doing anything on the vm with the built in mic, as I remember ber core audio only working for the speakers, but nothing with recording. Of course, that could have changed over the years, but from what I remember, the guest tools sound driver works better.
Wasting my time here
Nothing works here. When Windows is restarted it never starts normally. NVDA works fine and I can get into settings, yet the screen is blank. Tried the above solution, and also searched online, and nothing seemed to fix it up.
Why can an update crash the whole system? That's one thing sick about Microsoft that I don't encounter with MacOS.
Can anyone tell if the experience can be any better with other virtualisation apps?
Still Using Fusion
I obviously want UTM to succeed, but as things stand I simply don't have issues running my current Windows VM with Fusion, either ARM or Intel. The ARM experience is never going to be the same as Intel, but it's clear that for all its faults Fusion is a supported option that's simply going to get you man-hours and manpower. UTM is fine for Linux, although ever since I discovered vfkit even that isn't as important to me since you can just run the VM in the background and ssh into it, unless you need to attach external hardware like a Braille display, in which case UTM makes more sense than just running qemu by hand. You obviously need to experiment to see what works best for you, but I'd say Fusion is the way for WinDoze.
I do have issues getting audio out of the Windows installer on Fusion, however, and I am trying to figure out what the cause is. This seems to be an ongoing issue for the ARM version of Windows. If anyone knows anything about that, I'd be glad to hear of your experiences.