Mirage.

How it's built

Not Apple's framework

Apple's Virtualization.framework has no TPM anywhere in its headers and offers Windows no display device it has a driver for. It is documented for macOS and Linux guests. So: QEMU, accelerated by Hypervisor.framework — the same underlying hypervisor, so the CPU runs just as fast, plus UEFI firmware and devices a Windows guest can actually drive.

The TPM trade, stated plainly

QEMU's TPM device maps its registers as MMIO, and that region cannot be registered with Hypervisor.framework. A TPM or hardware acceleration — not both. Acceleration wins, Express Install applies Microsoft's documented setup bypass, and the cost is written down: no BitLocker, and nothing that needs a real TPM measurement.

Devices the guest already knows

NVMe boot disk, USB installer media over xHCI, a UEFI framebuffer the Basic Display Driver picks up, and an Intel-compatible NIC — every one an inbox driver on Windows for ARM. Argument order is load-bearing: the USB controller is emitted before anything that plugs into it, and a self-test locks that in.

Express Install

An answer file wrapped in a small ISO. Windows Setup scans every attached volume's root for it before its first screen, so the install runs hands-off: checks bypassed, a local account created, Remote Desktop enabled and the firewall opened before first login.

The key it presses for you

Windows install media asks you to press a key to boot from the disc and falls through to a UEFI shell if nothing does — which looks exactly like a broken boot. Mirage taps a key for the first fourteen seconds. Deliberately short: keep tapping past that and the keystrokes land in Setup's first text field.

The look

The macOS interface uses translucent panels and the studio’s process-ink dot pattern. Machine status uses separate colors, checked by a build test.