Parallels Desktop 14 has enhanced Windows and Mac integration, including support for the 2018 Fall update of Windows 10, Version 1809. It also includes improved maintenance features allowing you to schedule maintenance and keep working, even while downloading and installing system updates.
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Mac users are fortunate to have not one, but two excellent commercial virtualization software packages to choose from, not to mention less-polished free alternatives like Virtual Box. In what has now become an annual ritual, VMware and Parallels have updated their respective Fusion and Desktop products to coincide with the recent release of macOS Sierra.
Last year, both companies delivered ambitious new versions to capitalize on back-to-back debuts of Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan, but the 2016 editions are somewhat more subdued by comparison. VMware marked the occasion by launching Fusion 8.5, a maintenance update with no new features.
Having celebrated its tenth anniversary for Desktop earlier this year, Parallels encouraged engineers to come up with at least one unique new feature to justify the upgrade to version 12, although the company’s usual relentless innovation produced a mixed bag this time around.
Open the Toolbox
Ironically, the marquee feature of Parallels Desktop 12 ($100 one-year Pro Edition or Business Edition subscription; $80 Standard Edition one-time purchase; $40 Student Edition one-time purchase) isn’t part of the core software at all, but a bundled standalone application called Parallels Toolbox (sold separately for $10) which is installed via Preferences. Toolbox consolidates 20 common, everyday tasks into a single menu bar window, making them easier to find and use.
These tools offer one-click simplicity for downloading or converting video, recording audio, muting the microphone, or performing system tasks such as locking the screen, hiding the desktop, preventing your Mac from going to sleep, and Do Not Disturb, which temporarily pauses notifications and Dock activity. Convenient? Yes, but none of the utilities are particularly special or unique, and power users are likely to have their own alternatives already installed.
Others are grouped into categories, providing functionality for taking screenshots, screen recording, archiving files, or managing time. I found the stopwatch, alarm, timer, and date countdown in the latter group particularly handy, since I typically defer such tasks to my iPhone or Apple Watch. Toolbox strictly works on the host OS—it has nothing to do with enhancing Mac, Windows, or Linux virtual machines.
One unfortunate side effect of Toolbox is that you’ll now have three separate Parallels icons taking up space on the menu bar: one for Toolbox, another for Desktop (when it’s actually running, of course), and a third for Parallels Access, the company’s $20 per year remote access service (included with annual Desktop subscriptions). There’s clearly room for some consolidation here, and the individual tools also add icon clutter to Launchpad, but at least they can be organized into a single folder there.
Always ready
If you spend an equal amount of time in Windows and macOS, Parallels Desktop 12 offers a number of welcome enhancements. Performance has been boosted across the board, with 25 percent faster access to shared folders and snapshots, and noticeably speedier suspend and resume—under five seconds on my 27-inch iMac Retina 5K.
VMs can now be configured to launch automatically when your Mac starts up, leaving them paused in the background while idle to avoid consuming valuable CPU time. (Remarkably, this continues to work even after quitting Desktop.) Located under Startup and Shutdown in the Options tab, “always ready in background” is accompanied by a handful of custom settings that determine how VMs behave when launched, closed, or shut down.
One of my biggest Windows 10 pet peeves is the heavy-handed approach to automatic updates. I don’t use Windows daily, so it every time I launch Parallels Desktop, performance is degraded as updates start installing in the background. The new Maintenance option allows such tasks to be blocked until the scheduled time, such as a weekend when my iMac isn’t in use. (VMs must be open at the time.) PD12 includes one year of free online storage (500GB) from Acronis, which can be used to back up your virtual machines.
Desktop 12 also makes using Windows on the Mac more seamless. Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents in Safari can be configured to open in their respective desktop Office 365 applications, and passwords entered in Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge can now be saved in your Mac keychain.
Last but not least, Parallels offers independent screen resolutions for multiple displays. In full-screen mode, my iMac runs Retina Display resolution, while the adjacent 27-inch Thunderbolt Display works as an extended 2560 x 1440 desktop, each in their own Space. (Sadly, there are no independent settings for backgrounds.)
There is at least one area where Desktop 12 takes a step back. Contextual menu shortcuts have been inexplicably removed from Control Center, which I always found quite handy for quickly reclaiming storage from my Windows VMs without having to open the Configure window.
Bottom line
If you already have an annual subscription, installing Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac is a no-brainer. Although the new Toolbox utilities aren’t compelling enough on their own to justify $50 for a perpetual license upgrade, the performance improvements and macOS Sierra support certainly are.
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Parallels For Mac Reviews
One of the biggest challenges for businesses looking to adopt the Apple Macintosh platform is the fact that OS X doesn’t run Windows applications. Apple’s solution to that issue is to set up a MAC to multi-boot, using a technology called Boot Camp – in other words you can natively run OS X or you can reboot the system and run a different operating system, such as Windows, Linux, or something else.
However, that dual (or multiple) boot ideology introduces a plethora of hassles and denies the user the ability to truly leverage multiple applications running across multiple OSes. Simply put, that shiny new Mac may wind up only running Windows’ business applications, turning it into little more than a very expensive PC.
Virtualization to the Rescue:
Thanks to virtualization technology, there’s no longer any excuse to constantly reboot your Mac to run other OSes. Yet, historically, virtualization has been anything but simple – proving to be complex to deploy, set up, and use reliably.
What’s more, virtualization software comes in many shapes and sizes, with free products such as Oracle’s Virtual Box and for cost products such as VMMare’s VMWare Fusion for Mac (around $80) leading in the name recognition game.
While the aforementioned products are the primary competitors for the latest iteration of Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac (also around $80), Parallels takes a different approach. The software focuses on tighter integration, ease of use, and support options to take the mystery (and hassles) out of virtualization for those looking to maximize productivity on their Macs.
A closer Look at Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac:
In a world filled with free and low-cost applications, $80 may seem like a king’s ransom to pay for bringing multiple personalities to the typical Mac system. However, that $80 does buy a great deal of functionality and enables your Mac to do things previously thought impossible. What’s more, $80 is a lot cheaper than having to buy two systems (one for OS X and another for Windows) to accomplish what you may have to do on any given day.
With that in mind, $80 seems like a bargain. However, does the value offed by Parallels equate the initial cash outlay? That’s a question that can only be answered by taking a look at what the product brings to the desktop and determining whether its features, capabilities, and user experience surpass those of other options, especially Oracle’s VirtualBox, which for all intents and purposes, is free.
Software System Requirements:
Hands On with Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac:
Ease of use seems to be the evident theme with the latest version of Parallels, with wizards and guided menus doing all of the heavy lifting. For example, creating a new virtual machine can be accomplished in just a few mouse clicks – using the new virtual machine wizard.
What’s important to note is that the NVM (New Virtual Machine) wizard offers several options, including simply installing an alternate OS, migrating Windows from an existing PC, and downloading and installing alternate (free) OS, such as Ubuntu Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and even another OS X session.
Parallels For Mac Review
For the majority of users, a Windows install will be the most likely choice, and for simplicity’s sake, Windows 7 might be the best option for those looking to transition from a Windows to a Mac. However, there are situations where Windows 8.1 may be merited, especially if someone needs to to run the latest Windows applications on an OS X system.
Parallels offers several different paths to install Windows, it can be accomplished using a Windows DVD, installed from an image file, or installed from a key drive (USB drive) – all of which should share something in common, an installable image of Windows.
We tested all three methods with the latest release of Windows 8.1 and found that the USB drive method was the quickest (we didn’t have to copy any files to the local hard drive or mount any DVDs) and simplest way to move forward. The USB drive can be either a bootable drive or just simply contain an image file of the Windows install. Once the install source is chosen, Parallels takes care of the rest, including asking for the product key.
Once a key is entered, next comes one of the most important steps for defining how the virtual machine will function. Parallels provides four canned scenarios for Windows: Productivity, Games Only, Design, and Software Development.
Each choice sets up environment variables that provide the best functionality for that option. For example, the Games Only selection runs Windows in full-screen mode and offers the most resources to Windows. Meanwhile, the others balance memory usage, resources, and disk space necessary to provide a great experience without taxing the Mac system.
One nifty feature that’s unique to Parallels, is the ability to control the Windows 8 experience. During the final steps of configuring the virtual machine, users can select between a “Windows 8” experience or make Windows 8 function like “Windows 7.” For many users transitioning to OS X, the Windows 8.1 experience was the primary catalyst for using an alternative OS or eschewing an upgrade all together.
Here, Parallels makes a very wise choice and offers a path to the Windows 7 experience, bringing perhaps the best of both worlds (Windows 7 and OS X) to a single system in a very usable fashion.
Finalizing the install takes little more than assigning a name and validating some settings – most users can choose to go with the defaults and wind up with exactly what they would expect from a virtual machine. However, power users may want to delve into the additional settings to customize the environment and choose who will have access to the virtual machine.
Parallels provides plenty of tuning options during the creation process. Hardware choices, sharing options, security settings, and general options can all be defined during the final installation steps, and most of them can be changed later on to tune the virtual machine experience.
Overall, the setup took roughly 15 minutes, experienced Parallels users with fast MAC systems could probably pull off an install of Windows 8.1 on Parallels much more quickly.
Working With Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac:
We installed Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac on a Macbook Pro Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014 system, running OS X Version 10.9.4, with a 2.6 Ghz Intel Core i5 CPU, 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3 ram, and a 251 GB Flash Storage drive.
Using the Parallels NVM wizard, we created two virtual machines, a Windows 8.1 VM and a Windows 7 Ultimate VM. The NVM wizard automatically provisioned the virtual hard drives, created desktop shortcuts, and added the two VMs to the Parallels menu.
Launching a VM takes little more than clicking a choice on the Parallels Desktop Control Center or clicking on one of the desktop shortcuts created by the NVM wizard. You can also use the Parallels Desktop Control Center to alter VMs, switch between active VMs, pause VMs, and so on.
Parallels Desktop 13 For Mac Key
Parallels allows users to simultaneously launch multiple VMs, monitor the activity on those VMs from the control center, and seamlessly switch between native OS X applications, as well as applications running under VMs. Users can select between VMs using the mouse, touchpad, or keyboard shortcut keys. When resources are limited or one VM is given priority over another, Parallels will automatically pause the inactive to free up resources.
Conclusion:
Users will find that VMs perform adequately for using most Windows applications. However, the more powerful the host machine, the better a virtual machine will run. The MacBook we tested Parallels on was able to run Windows applications with aplomb – we tested most of the Microsoft Office suite and also ran applications such as Quicken, Quickbooks, and Photoshop.
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While there was some lag running Photoshop, as well as other graphics intensive applications, the overall experience was acceptable. Some processor and GPU intensive tasks, such as video encoding and data encryption showed signs of impaired performance; we didn’t encounter any errors, crashes, or other problems. Comparatively speaking, the applications running under a VM on the MacBook proved to perform well enough to give an experience equivalent to a PC a couple of generations behind the current latest and greatest powerhouses available today.
Simply put, Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac solves what may be an ever increasing problem – one where users need to run multiple OSes, access legacy applications, and transition to new systems. Considering that this functionality elsewhere, the $80 is a small price to pay.
Of course, users could choose to go the free route and select Oracle’s VirtualBox. That said, free comes at the price of constant tinkering, manual configurations and limited support.
Pros:
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December 2020
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