Windows 10+3.5 Framework on a M Mac
Creating a Windows 10 ARM Machine with the 3.5 Net framework — sometimes you want to run a Windows non-game program on an M1/2 Mac and you don’t want to have a Windows machine. Here’s the steps that work:
— go back to this page for references if anything goes wrong:
https://docs.getutm.app/guides/windows/Download a copy of UTM and install it:Download from GitHub
Download a copy of Windows 10 from the Microsoft Servers — pick the arm64 2025 release, not amd one, the amd one will not workUUP dump (Windows 10 21H2)
These steps below will get your system aria2 to extract things — the copy downloaded isn’t yet ready to work with UTM. Paste the following 3 steps into Terminal:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
$ brew tap sidneys/homebrew
$ brew install aria2 cabextract wimlib cdrtools sidneys/homebrew/chntpw
Run the uup_download_macos.sh that comes with it in Terminal. This will download things to convert the copy of Windows 10 to the proper format to work with UTM. You will need to follow these steps here — text in bold is me saying to do thingsOpen UTM and click the “+” button to open the VM creation wizard.
Select “Virtualize”.
Select “Windows”.
Make sure “Import VHDX Image” is unchecked and “Install Windows 10 or higher” is checked. Also make sure “Install drivers and SPICE tools” is checked. Press “Browse” and select the ISO you built in step 1.
Pick the amount of RAM and CPU cores you wish to give access to the VM. Press “Next” to continue. Half your RAM/CPU cores is a good idea.
Specify the maximum amount of drive space to allocate. Press “Next” to continue. Default is good.
If you have a directory you want to mount in the VM, you can select it here. Make a directory. You will want to save your characters here. Alternatively, you can skip this and select the directory later from the VM window’s toolbar. The shared directory will be available after installing SPICE tools (see below). Press “Next” to continue.
Press “Save” to create the VM. Wait for the guest tools to finish downloading and press the Run button to start the VM.
Follow the Windows installer. If you have issues with the mouse, press the mouse capture button in the toolbar to send mouse input directly. Press Control+Option together to exit mouse capture mode. Sometimes, due to driver issues, you can enter and exit capture mode and the mouse cursor works normally again.
Go straight to the bottom step after you’ve launched Windows successfully. You will need the 3.5 Net Framework in order to run old programs
https://www.brainlatam.com/blog/troubleshooting-installing-net-framework-3-5-335
“If the error persists, we will have to force the installation with the Windows command prompt (CMD). Prior to this step, we need to have the .NET Framework installation package in our device, which you can typically find on the 'Components' folder of the software we are trying to install (if you can't find in, it is also available for direct download on the Microsoft's website). For now, you can leave the installation package on your local disk folder (C:\).
Go to Start Menu and type 'cmd' and open it with administrator privileges. Copy the following command on the prompt and execute it:
Dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /source:C:\ /LimitAccess