- Mac users on OS X (including Yosemite) have a couple of options including Boot Camp, but they now have one more: Parallels 10. Using the latest build, you can download Windows 10 directly from the.
- Missing Windows on MAC! Here is the app to guide to use Windows on MAC using Parallels Desktop. This helps you to install and use Parallels Desktop.
- Sometimes, Mac users need to run Windows software. Maybe there’s a program you need for work that doesn’t offer a Mac version, or maybe you occasionally need to test websites in Internet Explorer. Whatever you need Windows for, Parallels is the best tool for the job.
Use Mac and Windows together – no rebooting required! You can have it all with Parallels Desktop. Unlike Boot Camp, you can seamlessly switch between Windows and Mac without ever needing to reboot. Save time, boost productivity, and work like a pro with Parallels Desktop. Important: Parallels Desktop for Mac does not include Microsoft Windows. You can purchase Windows 10 using Parallels Desktop interface. Visit the article below for more information. All students with an edu email can get the basic DreamSpark account and get access to full versions of Windows Server, SQL Server, etc. However, the premium account grants access to full copies of client Windows operating systems.
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with 58 posters participatingParallels and VMware both announced new versions of their virtualization products for Macs today, with performance improvements and optimizations for the upcoming releases of MacOS and Windows. VMware is also releasing a new version of Workstation, its desktop virtualization software for Windows and Linux PCs.
Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac will be available today. Although VMware Fusion 10 for Mac and Workstation 14 for Windows and Linux are being announced today, the VMware upgrades will be available for sale sometime in October.
Parallels stuck to its yearly paid upgrade schedule a year ago, while VMware released free updates to Fusion and Workstation. This year, both companies are asking customers to pay for upgrades.
Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion are both adding support for the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, though Parallels' Touch Bar implementation is more extensive. Both companies said the new releases will be more user-friendly while adding power features for IT pros and developers.
Fusion has friendlier pricing for multiple Macs
For people who need to run Windows or Linux on more than one Mac, the VMware pricing is better. A Parallels Desktop 13 license for one Mac costs $79.99 as a one-time purchase. That gets you the entry-level edition; Parallels' professional edition with extra features is licensed as a subscription costing $99.99 a year for each Mac. Customers upgrading from version 11 or 12 can get a perpetual license for a one-time charge of $49.99 or the subscription for $49.99 a year.
VMware Fusion licenses are more budget-friendly to people with multiple Macs. One perpetual license for the standard version of VMware Fusion is good for all the Macs you own, while a Fusion Pro license works on three Macs.
A standard VMware Fusion 10 license costs $79.99, or $49.99 if you're upgrading from Fusion 7, 8, or 8.5 (there was no version 9). A Fusion 10 Pro license costs $159.99, or $119.99 for upgraders.
Unlike Fusion, Workstation is licensed by device, so you need to buy one license for each Windows or Linux computer you install it on. Each Workstation license also costs more than a Fusion license—although there is still one totally free option.
A Workstation 14 Pro license will cost $249.99, or $149.99 if you're upgrading from version 11 or 12 (yes, they skipped version 13). Workstation 14 Player, the stripped-down version, will cost $149.99, or $79.99 for those upgrading from a recent version. While Player doesn't have all the advanced Workstation features, it does let companies provide restricted virtual machines that comply with company policies to employees.
Workstation Player only has to be paid for in commercial environments. So while a business that wants Player for its employees must purchase licenses, Player is free for personal use for those of you using it at home.
New Parallels features
Parallels and VMware products from the past few years will keep working in most scenarios, but the new releases have performance improvements and new features.
Parallels developed Touch Bar integrations for Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The company also has integrations for Web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.
In Word, for example, the Touch Bar will display formatting options such as bolding, italics, underlining, font sizes, and text alignment. Standard function keys and a few other options will be available in the Touch Bar for other Windows applications.
'Additionally, when you are using the Windows Start Menu or Desktop, Parallels Desktop 13 features Taskbar pinned elements, along with Cortana, Task View and settings in the Touch Bar,' Parallels' announcement said.
Parallels also developed a new Picture-in-Picture (PiP) view that displays an active virtual machine in a small window that is always visible on top of other applications. It's supposed to be a convenient way to keep track of what's going on in a guest operating system while you're doing other stuff on your Mac.
Parallels is also adding support for Microsoft's People Bar, an upcoming Windows 10 feature. This integration makes it possible for Mac users to pin a contact to the Dock and click that dock icon to send the person an e-mail or start a Skype call.
Parallels said the new Pro edition will come with these features:
- Assign up to 32 cores (vCPU) and 128GB of vRAM per VM, so upcoming iMac Pro users can create super powerful VMs.
- View Set Resolution menu to immediately switch resolutions for podcast, video tutorial or Web browser testing—including common 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 ratios with resolutions from 1024x768 to 3360x2300.
- Quick Virtual Machine IP Address Lookup to check and copy IP address from GUI to the clipboard in one click.
A separate business edition will also have a new 'single application mode' that will let IT departments provision a single Windows application to end users. That means employees won't have to be 'distracted by unfamiliar Windows and virtualization elements,' Parallels said. The business edition has the same pricing as the pro edition.
VMware boosts security
VMware's Fusion announcement said the new version improves GPU and 3D graphics performance and has a revamped user interface, but the announcement focused mostly on back-end improvements and enterprise capabilities.
For Pro edition users, 'support for REST APIs will offer a new interface for managing virtual machines remotely and programmatically,' VMware said. The new interface will include 'VM inventory management, VM power management, cloning, networking, configuration, and IP and MAC address gathering.'
There will be security improvements for Windows virtual machines in the form of support for Microsoft's Credential Guard, UEFI Secure Boot, and the Trusted Platform Module.
Do I Need To Buy Windows For Parallels Mac
VMware Fusion's Touch Bar Support is more basic than Parallels', giving you some control over virtual machines and the virtual machine library, but no support for actions within individual Windows applications.
Workstation is similarly boosting security with support for UEFI Secure Boot and the Trusted Platform Module. Workstation is also improving the ability to test how applications run over poor network conditions.
'Along with the existing network speed and packet loss simulator, a new Network Latency Simulator will further enable developers to run tests and simulate a specific network environment, including distance and network quality, to test application resiliency,' VMware said.
Editors' note, October 30, 2014: This review has been updated with new features added after the release of the Windows 10 technical preview.
Parallels Desktop for Mac has been letting people run Windows and other operating systems on their Macs for years. And with every major update, Parallels 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 VMWare fusion (also available for £36, or AU$64) or Virtual Box (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.
But what makes Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac special, is the way it incorporates Mac OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 features. Some of the new features give you more interactivity between operating systems, letting you place Windows apps on the Mac Launchpad or Dock, for example, and even as far as letting you use new features in Mac OS X Yosemite straight out of a Windows environment.
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. 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 For Windows 10
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. 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.
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.