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Installing and Using Windows OS on a Mac Computer

Installing and Using Windows OS on a Mac Computer

Many engineering apps only work with Windows OS which is why we specify having Windows in the ME laptop requirements.  If you have an Apple computer, you can run Windows in BootCamp (Intel-based Macs only that are soon to be end-of-life) or install a virtual machine software to run Windows.  For either, students can get a copy of Windows 11 Education from the Azure Education Hub - https://students.engr.utexas.edu/it-resources/software

Mechanical Engineering IT does not support personal computers in general and are unable to assist with the installation or configuration of a virtual machine on personal computer. We also do not support or assist with getting Solidworks or other engineering software designed for Windows OS working correctly in a Windows virtual machine on a Mac computer.

  • Setting up BootCamp (older, Intel-based Macs) - https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

  • M-series Macs will need to use a virtualized Windows environment (ie a Windows virtual machine).

  • For virtual machine utilities, you have two supported options:

    • Parallels Desktop For Mac - can be purchased through the UT Campus Computer Store or directly through Parallels' website

    • VMware Fusion Pro - free for personal use

    • Please note that you will lose some performance (about 10%) by using a virtual machine utility.

    • Treat the virtual machine like any other computer. It needs updates and can become compromised. Shut down the VM when not in use as it is taking up significant CPU and RAM resources from the Mac side.

    • You will usually need at least 30GB of available drive space for a Windows VM. Depending on your Solidworks installation selections, you may need up to 40GB more for the download and installation. Running Solidworks within a VM on a Mac with 16GB of RAM may struggle as the RAM is allocated to both macOS and Windows (amount controlled within VM software). Solidworks minimum RAM requirement is 16GB.

    • Do NOT use VirtualBox as a VM utility.  It is not supported by Solidworks, and Solidworks will not license, activate, nor download if VirtualBox is used.