Any success running TCS/FrameMaker on M1 Mac?

[Alan Houser]

Just sending this flare as I continue to work on the issue...

Have any of you successfully run TCS or even just FrameMaker on an M1 Mac? Here's the situation I'm encountering:

• Microsoft no longer provides a Windows 10 image for ARM-based processors. You can only install Windows 11 (BTW, which Microsoft claims provides full backwards application compatibility with Windows 10).
• It's no longer possible to install Internet Explorer on Windows 11. Only Microsoft Edge is supported.

Here's what I'm seeing thus far (in a Windows 11 VM under Parallels):

• The TCS installer initially terminated on launch, with message "Your browser or operating system is no longer supported. You may need to install the latest updates to your operating system". Applying the Adobe registry modifications for bypassing the IE 11 requirement appeared to fix this problem.

• FrameMaker terminates on launch with "The code execution cannot proceed because atmlib.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem". I've also searched for a copy of 'atmlib.dll' on my Windows 10 filesystem, without success. (I've attempted multiple re-installs from both the TCS and stand-alone FrameMaker installers).

If anybody can report success and/or provide a path forward, I would be grateful to learn of it!

-Alan Houser

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

I understood that the Publish panel (and thus, Save as PDF) didn't rely on the Adobe PDF driver. 

Any luck using the Publish panel workflow, rather than the Print workflow?

[Alan Houser]

Yeah, no. No option for direct PDF output works from FrameMaker on Windows 11/ARM.

This looks like a general Adobe development issue around PDF drivers. The last time I checked, there was no native Acrobat Distiller option available for Windows 11/ARM on my Creative Cloud plan. (I acknowledge that the FM PDF workflow no longer involves Acrobat Distiller, but I presume much of the underlying code is shared).

[Thomas Böttiger]

Thanks for the answer, Stefan. It is February 2023 and even the newest installer of FM 17 does not work, hence even the newest release of FM17 cannot be installed on an M1 machine. Thats a shame, as other non-Adobe apps run quite nicely...

[Jenny Farrar]

Framemaker splash screen opens, but then it blanks out and fails to launch.

Operating system was just updated in December 2021 to Windows 11 for x64

Installed FrameMaker from:

https://helpx.adobe.com/framemaker/kb/framemaker-downloads.html

What's the problem?

What's the solution?

After lots of failed attempts to get FrameMaker to launch on my new MSI Raider laptop with Windows 11,

I've just now experimented and discovered that FrameMaker downloaded, installed, and launched 

just fine on my old HP Pavilion laptop with Windows 10.

So I'm really thinking that perhaps Windows 11 upgrade was a big mistake on my new laptop?! ugh!

FrameMaker 2020 (Version 16.0.3)

https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/framemaker-won-t-launch/m-p/12622562#M73282

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Stefan-Gentz:

Like @pdeitel, I would also dearly love an update on this situation. We know that some (all?) of the details are under NDA, but perhaps you can offer us a glimmer of hope that this may actually be resolved at some point? 

~Barb

[Creamer Training]

I would like to be surprised, however I still think it comes down to percentage of marketshare. Macs have about 8-10% of the market, but how many of those would be interested in purchasing FrameMaker? I think it's going to come down to cost-of-programming vs projected-number-of-sales. 

I'm not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV, but I would think it would have been easier to (re)create a Mac version when both Windows and Mac used the Intel chips. 

[Note: I'm not dissing Macs--I've been a Mac user since 1985 and an Authorized Apple Conslutant from 1990-2011.]

[Alan Houser]

Oh, come on, David. This is not at all about the old, tired request to resurrect FrameMaker on MacOS. This is about support of FrameMaker on Windows 11, running in a virtual machine, that happens to be sitting on an ARM-based processor running MacOS. (ARM-based processors are also available for Windows platforms).

Several prominent people in the FrameMaker community run FrameMaker on a Windows virtual machine on a MacOS computer (and surely customers do as well), and have done so for years.

As Stefan mentioned, FrameMaker is not yet supported on Windows 11 (out a year this October). There are issues running FrameMaker even on native Windows 11 ARM-based processors.

All to say that Barb's and others' (including my) interest in this issue is perfectly reasonable. We've been using FrameMaker in this configuration for a decade or more.

[Creamer Training]

I posted to the wrong thread--I meant to post to the thread about a native Mac version. Why so aggressive? 

[Alan Houser]

Hi David - Apologies for the tone of my post. I had thought "I should sleep on this before I reply", but alas, I did not.

In my defense, you appeared (perhaps coincidentally, by timing) to be replying to another prominent member of our community (you also being in that category), who asked a perfectly reasonable (and shared) question. And posts of the form "your issue is not valid", by people who have no direct experience with the issue, tend to set me off. 🙂

[Creamer Training]

No problem.

It was the close time that threw my reply off (I wasn't paying as much attention to what post I was replying to as I should have.) 

For the record, I never said the issue was not valid. 

[Bob_Niland]

Barb: …love an update on this situation.

I take that to mean the Mac situation. On the Win11 situation (on x86-64, the text is silent on ARM), FM 2020u4 is supported, per:
https://helpx.adobe.com/framemaker/help/fm_system_requirements.html
…

• 64-bit version of Microsoft® Windows® 11 or 10
Note: (in a box)
Update 4 of FrameMaker Summer 2020 release is compatible with Microsoft® Windows 11 and 10. Update 3 and earlier releases of FrameMaker Summer 2020 release are compatible with Microsoft® Windows 10 only.
…

It's getting hard to find new PCs with Win10, or even with Win11 & downgrade rights.

Another possible Mac issue, from that same page, this interesting constraint is still with us:
Maximum supported screen resolution – 4K (3480 x 2160, 8.3 megapixels, aspect ratio 16:9)

…mentioned only because 5K monitors might be more common on Apple than on PC Windows systems. What's unclear is whether the FM window is limited to 4K, or whether FM might not run on a 5K system, regardless of FM window size.

[Barb Binder]

My question was summarized perfectly by Alan:

This is about support of FrameMaker on Windows 11, running in a virtual machine, that happens to be sitting on an ARM-based processor running MacOS.

-Alan Houser

---

And then, are we on the way to getting this resolved?

~Barb

[Bob_Niland]

At the risk of further drifting an already shaggy-dog thread, what's the end user expectation for how FM would run on a modern Mac?

Mac is now ARM-based, and of course MacOS has its own APIs for various system services, that are entirely different from Windows (but FM at one time was coded for them, on MC68K).

Let's leave aside for the moment a fresh re-port of FM to MacOS native, compilied for Apple ARM, which may or may not something in Adobe's crystal ball.

⎆ Would FM running in Windows on Mac suffice?
⎆ Would the Mac be providing an x86 VM (is it 64b)?
⎆ Or would this be really wierd; Windows ARM64EC running in a Mac ARM VM (is it 64b)?

Heck, does FM today install and run on native Windows ARM (using CHPE on Win10 or ARM64EC on Win11)? I suspect not, due to the 64b thing.

The possible levels of emulation are head-spinning.

[Alan Houser]

Hi Bob - IMO, the virtual machine platforms available on Windows (namely Parallels and VMWare) have made the intrigue of "native FrameMaker on MacOS" essentially moot. Performance of FrameMaker in these virtual machine environments is very good; and these platforms provide shared windowing environments and essentially seemless access between the Windows and MacOS filesystems. I've been using FrameMaker on Parallels/MacOS for at least 10 years.

The transition to ARM-based architectures has been bumpy. Microsoft pulled Windows 10 for ARM architectures, and only supports Windows 11 on ARM. And VMWare originally said essentially "There's no way we can legally support Windows 11 under Microsoft's EULA". (I see that VMWare just last week announced a "tech preview" version that supports Windows 11 on ARM-based Macs, so perhaps they've resolved this issue). 

I have FrameMaker running under Parallels/Windows 11 on my M1 Mac. There are some limitations ... I can't open the ExtendScript "Script" window; and the PDF workflow does not work (I can print to PostScript and run Acrobat Distiller on my Mac). Otherwise all works as expected.

[pdeitel]

Can you share what you did to get it running? I tried a fresh install in a demo version of Parallels on an M1 mac and it failed.

[Alan Houser]

I spent far too much time in trial-and-error getting FrameMaker 2020 running under Windows 11/Parallels on my M1 Mac. The two essential steps appear to be:

- Modify the Windows Registry to bypass the Internet Explorer dependency for the FrameMaker installer. (Windows 11 does provide or support Internet Explorer). Details under "Updated your browser or operating system but still see a warning or error?" at https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/update-operating-system-and-browser.html

- From a Windows 10 installation, copy "C:\Windows\System32\atmlib.dll" to the same location on Windows 11. (Be sure to copy atmlib.dll from "System32", not the version in "SysWOW64").

Let us know if this works for you. Good luck!

[Wim iDTP]

Hi Alan,

did you finally manage to run FM on the Mac? I'm encountering the same now, new Mac with Parallels and Windows 11. Can't install FM.

Wim

[Alan Houser]

Hi @Wim iDTP - I was able to install/run FrameMaker 2020 with the steps below, and have been using it successfully for several months.

A couple of issues/items of note:

- PDF workflows will not work (Save as PDF, or Publish>PDF). You will need to print to Postscript and generate PDF under MacOS (either Acrobat Distiller or MacOS Preview).

- The Extendscript Toolkit will not run (not supported on x64 architectures)

- When I try to install the new FrameMaker 2022 on Windows 11/ARM under Parallels, I get an immediate installer termination.

------

- Modify the Windows Registry to bypass the Internet Explorer dependency for the FrameMaker installer. (Windows 11 does provide or support Internet Explorer). Details under "Updated your browser or operating system but still see a warning or error?" at https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/update-operating-system-and-browser.html

- From a Windows 10 installation, copy "C:\Windows\System32\atmlib.dll" to the same location on Windows 11. (Be sure to copy atmlib.dll from "System32", not the version in "SysWOW64").

[Bob_Niland]

Alan Houser: When I try to install the new FrameMaker 2022 on Windows 11/ARM under Parallels, I get an immediate installer termination.

In the installation .zip for 17.0.0.226,
…\Adobe FrameMaker 2022\resources\winarm64\
is completely empty, so kaboom results would be unsurprising.
Also, in the presentations yesterday, there was no mention of ARM,
and when it arrives, it appears that it will be Win11/ARM and not MacOS/ARM.

[Alan Houser]

Thanks, @Bob_Niland! I missed the Adobe launch presentation.

I would not expect any support for FrameMaker on MacOS. But Win11/ARM on a virtual machine is Win11/ARM.

[Bob_Niland]

re: In the installation .zip for 17.0.0.226,
…\Adobe FrameMaker 2022\resources\winarm64\
is completely empty, …

And still is for 17.0.1.305

[Wim iDTP]

Hi Alan,

thanks to the tip by @Stefan-Gentz I managed to get FM2019, 2020 and 2022 running on my Mac with Windows 11/ARM under Parallels: just copied the folders from my previous Windows 10 system and copied atmlib.dll. Had to start as administrator to get the registry right, but it seems to work fine now.

Thanks for your help!

Wim (sorry, can't manage to cgange my user name.... :0

[pdeitel]

Are you finding anything that does not work?

[Wim iDTP]

I didn't work with it yet, just tested the starup, opening and closing files without errorrs. 

Keep you posted .....

[pdeitel]

Hi Alan, Just curious how this is working out for you. Also, just to confirm, you did not run the installer on the mac VM. You ran it on Windows 10 x64, then just copied the framemaker folder/files? Did you have to edit the registry manually or did running as Admin do that for you?