Microsoft finally fulfills the promise to deliver the Windows 11 on ARM ISO
Earlier this month, Microsoft revealed that Windows 11 would soon get AVX2 support within Prism alongside AVX, BMI, FMA, and F16C extensions. However, installation images for Windows 11 ARM were only accessible to Windows Insiders. Fortunately, the Windows 11 ARM ISO is now available for everyone.
Those who need it can visit this page and grab the Windows 11 disk image for ARM-based PCs. For everyone else, here are three ways to take advantage of this download:
- Create virtual machines on various platforms to test ARM apps, develop such apps, or just assess the performance of the latest Windows 11 for ARM build.
- Create bootable media to install Windows 11 on ARM-powered machines.
- From within an existing Windows installation that is in a working condition, the ISO file can be mounted and then used to initiate the setup process.
Unfortunately, ARM64 virtual machines are not compatible with Hyper-V on x64 hardware, making it necessary to create a virtual machine in the cloud instead via Azure to use on the hardware at hand. Also, some limitations apply to ARM64 virtual machines on Apple hardware. For more details, please check out this page.
In addition to the above, it should also be noted that owners of the systems based on older Snapdragon generation chips must inject the drivers from the device manufacturer into the image. To learn how to do so, they should just check out this page.
To take advantage of all the benefits of Windows 11 on ARM, the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Plus (2024 edition) is a great choice. Right now, it can be acquired on Amazon with 16/256 GB for $875 instead of $999.99 (12% discount).
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