Parallels Desktop?10 For Mac
Why Use Parallels Instead of Boot Camp or VirtualBox? RELATED: Sure, you could, but that means restarting your computer every time you need to use Windows. How to convert flash flv to mov for mac. Parallels runs Windows within macOS, using what’s called a Virtual Machine. This allows you to quickly switch between the Mac and Windows desktops. You can even combine the two desktops, if you want, and run Windows software right on your Mac desktop from your Mac’s dock. Virtual machines are complicated, but Parallels makes it reasonably simple to set one up and use it.
There are other virtual machine options available to Mac users, including the open source, but Parallels is different in that it’s designed exclusively with Mac users in mind. Parallels costs more (since VirtualBox is free and Parallels is not), but there are hundreds of little design touches that help make running Windows within macOS as painless as possible, and that make setting everything up quick and easy. It’s well worth the cost. How Much Does Parallels Cost? Browsing the Parallels website, it can be a little tricky to find out what the product actually costs.
So here’s a quick breakdown:. Purchasing the latest home version of costs $80 as of this writing.
This lets you run Parallels on a single Mac. Upgrading from one version of Parallels to another generally costs $50, and will probably be necessary every couple of years if you keep installing the latest versions of macOS. A $70 annual subscription gives you access to all updates “for free,” according to the Parallels website.
RELATED: If you just want to try out Parallels and see if it works for you, you can: there’s a 14 day trial of the software, which you can access without providing a credit card number. There’s also, which is free on the Mac App Store and lets you create both Linux and macOS virtual machines. Parallels Desktop Lite can only run Windows virtual machines if you pay for a subscription, however. One more note: purchasing Parallels does not give you a Windows license, or a Windows product key. If you have a Windows installation CD or USB key handy with a valid license you can use that, otherwise you will need to purchase Windows 10 from Microsoft to create a Windows 10 virtual machine. RELATED: We’ll point out that —Microsoft basically gave up enforcing their license requirements with Windows 10, and you can (you’ll probably want it in the form of ).
Legally speaking, however, you still need a product key to use Windows, even in a virtual machine. How to Install Windows in Parallels Got everything you need? The new virtual machine wizard, which launches the first time you open Parallels, makes the process simple. Assuming you already have a Windows CD or ISO, click the “Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file” button. The ISO or DVD should be found automatically; otherwise, click the “Locate Manually” button. Then click “Continue.” You’ll be asked whether you want an Express installation, which automates the installation process so that you don’t need to enter the product key or click “Next” during the installation process. Choose this option if you want, otherwise plan on babysitting the installation a little bit.
Next you’ll be asked what you plan on using this virtual machine for: work-related software or gaming. If you select Games only, the virtual machine will be set to use a lot more resources, so only click that if you intend to do serious gaming in the virtual machine (which is probably not a great idea). Also make sure your Mac even has enough resources to dedicate—if you spread your computer’s resources too thin, your virtual machine will be very slow. You can change these settings later, but I recommend going with “Productivity” in almost all cases. Finally, you’ll be asked for a few details: what the machine should be named, where it should be located, and whether you want a shortcut to the machine on your desktop. You can also configure the settings before installation—don’t worry, you can tweak any of those later if you’d rather not dive in right now.
Click “Continue.” The Windows installer will run. If you selected the Express installation, you won’t need to do anything: just watch as Windows installs. If not, you’ll have to click “Next” a bunch of times and enter your product key, as is normal for installing Windows.
The installation process can take a while, if mechanical hard drives or a DVD is involved. If everything is running off an SSD, however, you’ll be up and running in a few minutes. Eventually you’ll see the Windows desktop! We’re almost done. How to Seamlessly Integrate Your Virtual Machine Into macOS That’s all well and good, and you can start using Windows now—but if you really want to get the best of what Parallels has to offer, you have a few more steps ahead of you. At the top-right of your virtual machine you’ll see a caution sign. This is letting you know that Parallels Tools needs to be installed. Installing this lets you move your mouse between macOS and Windows in one swift motion, and also makes it possible to access your Mac files from within Windows.
To get started, click that caution sign, then click “Install Parallels Tools.” Doing this will mount a virtual CD in the Windows virtual machine. You’ll be asked what you want to do by Windows; select “Install Parallels Tools.” The installer will take a few minutes, and eventually will require you to restart Windows. Do that and you’ll be up and running: your virtual machine will be integrated with macOS. Once Parallels Tools is installed, Windows integrates very cleanly with macOS. There are all kinds of examples of this:. Moving your mouse to your Windows virtual machine is seamless. Anything you copy to your Windows clipboard can be pasted in Mac apps, and vice-versa.
The Documents, Downloads, and Desktop folders in Windows are symbolically linked to the same folders in macOS. Change a file in one place and it changes in the other. If you have Dropbox or iCloud running in macOS, those folders are available in Windows Explorer. If you have OneDrive set up in Windows, that is available to you in macOS. Individual Windows programs are shown in your Mac’s dock.
We could go on: the extent of the integrations is staggering. If any of them bother you for any reason, you can change them by shutting the virtual machine down, then clicking the Settings button for it. Head to the “Sharing” tab to disable the folder sharing. And head to the “Applications” tab to stop Windows applications from showing up in your Mac dock. There are all kinds of other settings we could explore, but this article is only a starting point. Dive in and experiment.
More Than Just Windows Parallels isn’t just for running Windows, either: you can use it to set up Linux, ChromeOS, and even macOS virtual machines. We outlined, and the process is identical for the full version of Parallels Desktop, so check out that article if you’re interested. RELATED: If you intend to create a lot of virtual machines, you should also read about, because these machines will eat up a lot of hard drive space.
Editors' note, October 30, 2014: This review has been updated with new features added after the release of the technical preview. Has been letting people run Windows and other operating systems on their Macs for years. And with every major update, has added yet another feature that makes switching between your regular operating system and virtual machines even more seamless. There are other apps that do virtualization, such as $60 (also available for £36, or AU$64) or (free).
These will both let you run Windows on your Mac (as long as you own a copy) and might be good enough for your purposes. What is Parallels for? Parallels Desktop ($80, £50, or AU$86) is a virtualization system for running other operating systems on your Mac. As an example, this would be useful if you use Windows at work, but have a Mac laptop at home because it means you can run all the Windows specific tools from work on the Mac without having to buy a separate computer. Virtualization is used by software developers as well, because it allows them to run an operating system that has no ties to the computer it's on.
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This way, even if a virtual system gets a virus, it can only infect that enclosed system, leaving the host computer virus free. From there all they need to do is shut down and restart from an earlier healthy snapshot of the virtual system to start again fresh. Parallels is also useful for people who play video games because it lets them pick from the much larger library of Windows titles and play them on a Mac. In this particular case, your mileage may vary because your Mac may not have the video processing power of high-end video cards.
If you're going to use Parallels with one of the free operating systems offered in the app (more on this later), you'll only need to spend the $80 for Parallels. But be warned, that in order to use this software with Windows as I did in this demo, you're going to be spending $80 for Parallels, plus the price of Windows 8.1 (currently available for about $120, £70, or AU$130). While it is not cheap, if you identify with one of the use cases above, it's worth the money. Installing an operating system To get Parallels up and running, you're going to need to have the full version of another operating system on hand. From the Parallels launcher, you can download free operating systems including Chrome OS, Ubuntu Linux, Android OS, or even another version of Mac OS X using your Mac's recovery partition. Past versions of Parallels had the option to purchase and install Windows 7 from within the software, so you could get started right away. Microsoft no longer has a deal with Parallels, but Parallels Desktop 10 enables you to download and install a 90-day trial of Windows.
Parallels Desktop 10 For Mac
The wizard also lets you move a PC, including Windows and all of its applications and files to your Mac so you have everything you need on one computer If you know you'll need to run Windows for the long term, the easiest option is a box copy of Windows 8 on a DVD. As long as you have an internal or external DVD drive, you can select it from the Parallels Launch Center, and start installing straight away. In the latest version of Parallels, you also can drag and drop a.ISO file straight into the interface to start the installation. If you downloaded Windows from Microsoft hoping (like I did) to just select the installer executable, you're going to have a tough time. Parallels requires either a DVD or image file (ISO), or you can use the Parallels Transporter Agent to migrate Windows from another PC.
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To create an ISO file, you'll need to start the installation on another Windows PC, download all the data files, then select create as image, and choose either DVD or thumb drive. It took me some time to figure it all out, but I finally used a thumb drive to transfer the installer and get it running on my Mac.
This is all just a precaution to make sure you don't make the same mistake I did and already have an ISO image or boxed version of Windows before you get started. While I think it's OK that Parallels has specific requirements for the installation file, it would be nice if the app took care of the conversion for you. Without knowing, it's pretty easy to buy and download an operating system in the standard way (resulting in an.exe file) that requires a lengthy process for conversion before it will work.