QuickLoad & Apple Silicon

[Jager]

Just a heads-up for those of you who use QuickLoad on a Mac, running under a virtual machine like Parallels or VMWare's Fusion...

In late 2020 Apple began transitioning its Mac hardware from Intel x86 processors to its own ARM-based CPU's.

The short summary: QuickLoad does NOT presently work on these new Apple chips. (See below).

The slightly longer summary: At present, the only virtualization solution supporting Apple's ARM architecture is Parallels v17. (Parallels v16.5 was an interim release that also supported ARM, but I do not believe that is commercially available any longer). Parallels v17 ARM architectures require Windows 10 or Windows 11. They are not supported in earlier versions of Windows.

Windows is an x86-based program. Microsoft currently has a beta version of Windows 11 that supports ARM (accessing that beta version of Win11 requires you first join Microsoft's Windows Insider program).

Unfortunately, QuickLoad, even under Parallels v17, running the ARM-supported experimental build of Windows 11, fails to run.

A number of people are looking at this. If/when a solution for QuickLoad-on-ARM is found, I'll update this thread.

 

[cosh33806]

I have a new MacBook ARM M1. I purchased Parallels 17 and it had the option to download a release edition of Windows 11 ARM. I paid for Windows 11, not Insider Edition. Sorry - I don't have QL so unable to report on that operation. Maybe one step closer to success for QL.

 

[Jager]

Okay, a quick update on this. A virtualization solution for QuickLoad-on-an-ARM computer still eludes us. However, Crossover (https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/) works quite well. Took me about five minutes to download the two-week free Crossover trial and install QuickLoad, followed by the Sept 2021 update, in a Windows 10 bottle. It runs just fine. There's a sixty buck license fee after the trial expires, but there's no need to have either a license for Windows or a copy of Windows.

For those of you - like me - who have always been dismissive of Wine, the technology behind Crossover, all I can say is that it works much, much better than I would have anticipated. Part of that may be down to the profound CPU improvements that the Apple ARM architecture brings, compared to Intel's x86. Whatever, it just works really well.

For those still inclined to investigate a virtualization solution using Parallels, here is a quick summary of my own experiences (with QuickLoad) in recent months...

• Windows 7 / Parallels v15 / Intel x86: works fine
• Windows 7 / Parallels v17 / Intel x86: works fine
• Windows 11 (prod release) / Parallels v17 / Apple ARM: does not work (installs fine but will not execute)
• Windows 11 (multiple dev releases) / Parallels v17 / Apple ARM: does not work (installs fine but will not execute)

Of note, Parallels has always been somewhat problematic with respect to properly recognizing and reading physical CD/DVD drives. This is an obvious concern with something like QuickLoad given that that software is only available on a physical CD.

With Parallels v15 / Intel x86, the CD/DVD interface was sketchy. But with patience, you could eventually get it to work. With Parallels v17 / Apple ARM, that CD/DVD interface approaches hard failure. I have yet to get the virtualization engine to recognize the (removable) physical CD/DVD drive, trigger the AutoRun script, and execute Setup.exe.

The solution to that issue is to create an .iso file from the QuickLoad install CD. You do that in MacOS, so it's very straightforward. Once you've done that, you don't need the physical CD.

Once successfully installed under Windows 11 / Parallels v17 / Apple ARM, the QuickLoad error received upon startup is: "Error reading License String"


For those who don't want to hassle with all those issues, who just want to run QuickLoad... just get Crossover.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I have been running QuickLoad via Crossover on a Mac laptop for years. It works. I didn't comment earlier because I haven't tried to put QuickLoad/Crossover on a new Mac laptop. Good to know that it should work even on the new one.

 

[SeabeeKen]

Set up a win 11 vm on my linux machine. Ql will not complete the installation. It will install on the wifes win 11 machine.

 

[mlybudo]

I have a new Surface 7 laptop with snapdragon ARM processor and even with Win 11 emulation Prism mode it will not load. Guess I will keep my old Surface 3 Pro just for quickload