Yeah since Win10, I canāt trust MS to not screw up my computers whenever itās least convenient for me, so, to run Inventor & Solidworks, which are Windows-only, I switched over to a Mac and just set up a VMWare virtual machine for Win7 & Win10 each (Win7 still whips the shag out of Win10, but thatās another topic). If youāre unfamiliar, a Virtual Machine is a single file on your SSD, which Windows installs into & thinks of it as an entire computer, blissfully unaware that beyond its reach, thereās an entire other program, operating system & computer with its own specs that itās actually running on. Both Windows and Mac run at the same time on the same screen and any programs launched run like itās all one computer, bc in large part it is. Within that, I keep Windows cut off from the internet by selecting āhost-onlyā networking, in which VMware (or Parallels) only allow file sharing between Mac & Windows, & wonāt let Win connect to the outside world, regardless of Windows trying, and MS having set Win10 to periodically change its settings to access the internet & start downloading updates again.
Occasionally, Iāll either try out some questionable program & wish to remove it, or I connect windows for some .NET or VBA update nonsense that it should already have installed, and forget to switch the networking back to host-only, & find Windows pulling all kinds of BS taking advantage of its newfound freedom. But remember, the entirety of Windows is installed in a single Virtual Machine fileā¦ soooo, click that VM file itself, hit Time Machine, Restore from backup, and the entire Windows install is re-imaged, replaced with itsself circa the day it was installed & configured, fresh as a daisy, in under a minute. No problems, no issues, no clutter, no broken anything. Just fires right up unaware itās a clone thatās replacing an endless line of clones just like it that Iāve killed off bc of some minor error, just like in MOON.
I let windows run a couple programs, but thatās it, I keep it on a short leash. ā¦or, I guess more like tied down & blindfolded.
Unfortunately, Apple just pulled the rug out from under us, ditching Intel for ARM processors. ā¦though, I guess weāll see how long it takes MS to do the same, since they too already have an ARM-based version of Windows, & with the massive gaming industry economically driving the demand for more and cooler performance, the writing may be on the wall for Intel. ā¦which would put Autodesk & Dassault on defense, as pereniially trying to avoid a costly full rewrite of their ancient applications would require urging their customers to stay on a fading chip architecture. At some point, the first well done parametric solid modeler that can read & write the filetypes & run on modern hardware should grab some market share. But the transition is going to suck, with everyone dragging their heels.