Parallels is therefore perfectly safe to use and will never be able to damage your Mac’s hard drive.

If a virus damaged Windows in Parallels, you could quite simply reinstall the copy of Windows and your Mac would be unscathed. However, even in a virtual environment version of Windows, you could get a virus although it would be isolated to your virtual environment and Windows installation – it would not touch your Mac’s hard drive. Everything in Parallels is done in a sealed environment from macOS. This means that Parallels can’t actually harm your Mac in any way. Parallels runs in a virtual environment that doesn’t affect your Mac in the same way as the macOS operating system installed on your Mac. Other nice touches in the latest version of Parallels include Touch ID support, OpenGL support to run Windows CAD software on Mac, and improved support for the latest M2 chip Macs such as the M2 MacBook Pro and M2 Mac Studio. Parallels 18 extended this support to take full advantage of the M1 Ultra chip in the M1 Mac Studio making it possible to run Windows 11 96% faster than before according to Parallels.Īnd now finally in Parallels 19 has arrived with a cleaner user interface, even faster “two-click” installation of Windows 11 and closer integration with macOS including the latest version of macOS Sonoma. Parallels is also the only virtual solution to run Windows on a Mac that is officially endorsed by Microsoft. Parallels became the first virtualization software to officially support Apple Silicon ARM M1 & M2 chip Macs although other virtual machines have beta versions that support it. Parallels 17 was another evolution in the product as it had to be re-engineered for some fundamental changes in macOS 11 Big Sur, Monterey and beyond into Apple Silicon. Parallels 16 and 16.5 brought significant speed improvements plus beta support for Apple Silicon M1 Macs. It also allowed Mac users to use seriously graphic intensive apps such as Windows only CAD applications for the first time. The last major update to Parallels was in Parallels 15 which was a big step-up from previous versions of Parallels because it finally supported DirectX 11 and Apple Metal API which allowed Mac users to play Windows only games such as FIFA, Age of Empires and Fallout. We think it’s by far the most convenient way to get Windows on your Mac because it’s incredibly easy to setup, launches Windows apps or games quickly and allows you to switch between macOS and Windows instantly. Not only this but you can run just about any other operating system in it such as Linux and Android on it which allows you to play games such as Among Us which aren’t available for Mac. You can even copy and paste files and documents between macOS and Windows as if they were one operating system. In fact, it can run over 200,000 Windows only apps on a Mac according to Parallels. Parallels is a virtual environment that allows you to conveniently run all those Windows only applications and games that don’t run on Mac.

How To Install Windows 10 for Free on a Mac.

How To Install Windows on a Mac with Boot Camp.Parallels 19 is also currently offering a 50% discount to students and teachers making it an excellent deal for those in education. Parallels 19 For Mac is also optimized to make it faster and easier than ever to run Windows in macOS Sonoma, Ventura, Monterey and Big Sur. Parallels is also the only solution officially authorized by Microsoft to run Windows 11 on a Mac. The latest version of Parallels 19 is also the only virtual machine that officially supports running Windows 11 on a Mac as it’s the only software that can emulate the physical TPM chip required by Windows 11.Īt the moment, it’s also the easiest way to run Windows 11 on M1 and M2 Macs and was the first virtual machine to support the latest Apple Silicon M1 and subsequent M2 chip. For as long as we can remember, Parallels has always been the best way to run Windows on a Mac and in this Parallels review, we take a look at why it’s still the best Windows on Mac solution for both Intel and M1/M2 Macs.

Parallels desktop 16 for mac