When Apple launched its Mac computers built around its own processors, it was considered a landmark as its Apple Silicon chips outperformed the Intel-based CPUs the company had used since 2005.
The first round of chips, dubbed M1, ran cooler, delivered more power on less energy and consolidated other components into one efficient package, boosting speed. But for all that the new hardware brought to the table, it took one item off: the ability to run Microsoft’s Windows operating system as well as Apple’s own macOS.
That feature, called Boot Camp, was an important part of the Mac’s strategy after Apple moved to Intel processors; it served as a kind of training wheels for those who were macOS-curious but still wanted a Windows safety net. While that strategy has since been deprecated, there remain users for whom dual operating systems are important.
They include software developers who write apps for both programs; office workers who own Macs but also need to use Windows software for their jobs; and of course gamers, who want to blast demons or guide a cat through a ruined city with titles unavailable for the Mac.
With the advent of the M1- and newer M2-based Macs, Boot Camp is now dead, leaving virtualization software as your only option for running Windows on a Mac. The best product for doing this has long been Parallels Desktop for Mac, and Corel – which now owns Parallels – has released a new version that makes doing so even easier.
But as good as Parallels 18 is, it still falls short of the capabilities of Boot Camp on Apple Silicon computers, largely because those processors aren’t Intel-compatible. It’s the second version of Parallels to work on the newer Macs, and it’s well-refined. On Intel-based Macs, version 18 is a minor iteration, but still worth the upgrade.
(Some background: Virtualization apps such as Parallels or its top competitor, VMWare Fusion, create a software-based computer, essentially a PC-within-a-PC known as a virtual machine or VM. Users install a variety of operating systems and run them in the VM. That’s in contrast to Boot Camp, which keeps a version of Windows in a separate part of an Intel Mac’s drive. At startup, you choose whether to run Windows or macOS. The two can’t run concurrently, as they can with a VM.)
I’ve been using Parallels since the late 2000s, and featured it in a book I wrote in 2008 about how to run Windows on a Mac. Over time it has become more powerful and friendlier to use. There are some instances in which programs I run in Parallels virtual machines on my Macs feel snappier than they do on my Dell gaming laptop.
I’ve been testing Parallels Desktop 18 for Mac on my 2020 27-inch iMac with a 3.3-GHz Intel Core i5 processor, and on my 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro running an M1 Pro chip. The iMac, because it has an Intel chip, can run a standard version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system, and I’ve got the latest installed: Windows 11.
However, versions of Windows created for Intel processors won’t run on Parallels on my MacBook Pro. Instead, it requires a version Microsoft developed for processors that, like the M1 Pro, can …….