Installation of Windows 10 Insider Preview VHDX fails on MacOS M1 Big Sur

Hi,

I have Parallels Desktop (Version 16.5.0 (50692)). When I try and install Windows 10 (Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX) on a new Mac (MacBook Pro (13-Inch, M1, 2020), macOs Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91)), the installer always reaches the "Creating..." stage, hits 13%, then silently fails and reverts to the previous "Name and Location" stage without displaying any kind of error.

Any advice for how to fix this issue, or even how to gather some more data from the failure of the installation process?

Thanks,
Euan

 

I'm having the exact same issue. In my case, it's on Big Sur 11.2.2, with Parallels 16.5.1, using Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.vhdx, and it silently fails back to the previous screen shortly after starting. I don't know what the way forward is yet, and am hoping for advice as well.

 

But now I succeeded! It appears that the Chrome browser's download manager doesn't properly handle errors and just moves past them. By contrast, the Safari download manager stops on errors, and provides the option to retry from where it left off. Which it did, and which worked a treat for me. =o)

 

Hi Ceallaigh,

Thanks a lot for replying!

Sorry but I didn't totally understand your second post... are you saying that there were some problems with the downloaded VHDX itself, and that after re-downloading it with Safari, the installation worked fine?

Thanks,
Euan

 

Greetings Euan,

Yes indeed, you have it exactly. I tried downloading the VHDX with Chrome several times, and each time the installation variously failed; either refusing to install at all, or attempting to install but erroring out after some percentage complete. When I tried with Safari, an error still occurred during download, but Safari's download management caught the error and reported it during the download, providing an option to recover and continue. I did so, and THAT version of the downloaded file worked a treat.

It's noteworthy that we live quite rurally and have spotty internet, so this is surely a contributing factor to the issue.

 

Thanks Ceallaigh. Judging from our Gaelic names we probably had exactly the same source of problem! I'm in an old cottage in the middle of nowhere myself... but your solution worked like a charm, thank you very much. Just drove into town and downloaded the VHDX via Safari via WiFi in a cafe...

Bit strange that Parallels doesn't raise any errors or give any information whatsoever - the least they could throw up would be a "corrupted image" error...!

Thanks again,
Euan