Parallels, a global leader in cross-platform solutions and creator of the #1-selling software for running Windows applications on a Mac, today launched Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac, which provides macOS Mojave–readiness. Upgrading to Parallels Desktop 14 offers significant storage savings, faster launch times, improved graphics and the latest versions of Parallels Toolbox for Windows or Mac. Through Parallels Desktop 14, customers now have access to more Windows features on Mac than ever before.
“Millions of Parallels Desktop customers highly value performance and efficiency,” said Jack Zubarev, Parallels president, in a statement. “With Parallels Desktop 14, we’ve taken those to the next level by focusing on graphics and storage, allowing customers to save as much as 20 GB of disk space while enjoying the best-ever performance. Personal productivity enhancements include more Windows features available on Mac devices. Touch Bar™ support for Windows applications—such as OneNote or Quicken—enables customers to add their favorite applications to the Mac Touch Bar so their shortcuts are at their fingertips.”
Enhanced Storage Optimization
Typically, virtual machines are large, taking anywhere from 15–100 GBs of space or more. With two different storage mechanisms at work (Windows and Mac), newly engineered storage optimization that takes both Windows and Mac mechanisms into account can result in significant disk space savings. The new Free Up Disk Space dialog that suggests storage-saving actions now better handles multiple virtual machines. Newly created snapshots occupy up to 15 percent less disk space.
Keep Melting the Border between Windows and Mac
Parallels Desktop 14 now enables customers to use Microsoft Ink to edit Microsoft Office for Windows documents on a Mac, including pressure-sensitive support in applications such as PowerPoint, Microsoft Edge, CorelDRAW, Fresh Paint, Leonardo, openCanvas and Photoshop for Windows.
Preconfigured Touch Bar sets for the following applications have been added to Parallels Desktop 14: Microsoft Visio and OneNote, SketchUp, AutoCAD, Revit, Quicken, QuickBooks and Visual Studio. They join current Parallels Desktop Touch Bar sets for Windows applications, including: Office 2016 (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), Windows Start Menu and desktop (Cortana, Task View and Task Bar pinned elements), File Explorer (File Open and Save As settings), and web browsers (Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Vivaldi).
The Parallels Desktop Touch Bar Wizard makes it easy for users to customize the Touch Bar for thousands of Windows applications, so their function key shortcuts are at their fingertips when using the applications. Additionally, with the use of Touch Bar XML Authoring, users can further personalize the Touch Bar with their own customized function key shortcuts for their favorite Windows applications.
macOS Mojave–Ready
Parallels Desktop 14 supports Dark Mode. Quick Look issued on Windows files now shows quick actions. Support for additional Mojave features, which are currently in development, will be tested, finalized and introduced around the forthcoming public release of Mojave.
The Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac installation image, which is notarized by Apple®, will be seen by users when it is installed on Mojave.
Enhanced Graphic Support and 4K Shared Camera Support
Parallels Desktop 14 now features improved OpenGL support for enhanced graphics, with notable improvements in SketchUp 2017/2018, CTVox, DIALux 8 and OriginLab.
All view modes have been improved in terms of speed and memory usage, which is especially important when working on multiple high-resolution external displays, including those of 5K resolutions.
Unused virtual video memory is now effectively returned to Mac system memory. Auto mode for graphics allows Windows to use more than 2 GB of Mac system memory for video purposes, while allowing Windows applications to use it when possible.***
Additionally, users now get a better frame rate in video conferencing and can use shared camera technology with cameras that support up to 4K resolutions.
Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition
New Business Edition features include enhanced management, plus security and licensing portals. Additional improvements include:
• Smart card readers are now automatically available in both Mac and Windows for faster access (if enabled).
• Administrators can invite users via email and assign separate administrators for sublicenses for improved efficiency.****
• Replace existing virtual machines in Deployment Mode to streamline productivity.
• Applications deployed in the Single Application mode start faster, along with a new modern-looking splash screen.
• The Parallels “My Account” portal has been redesigned to be optimized for popular use cases.****
More than 30+ Single-Click Utilities from Parallels Toolbox for Windows and Mac
New and popular Parallels Toolbox tools include:
• Screenshot Page – Capture and print lengthy webpages that don’t fit onto your screen. Take and print screenshots of webpages in one click—even pages longer than your browser screen.
Watch demo videos:
“How to Capture Lengthy Webpages – “Snagit 2018 vs. Parallels Toolbox” and
“How to Capture a Full Webpage Screenshot with a Safari Extension”
• Free Memory – Reclaim RAM memory and optimize its consumption on your Mac. Add this Free Memory tool to the macOS menu bar to easily check how much RAM is available with just a click and reclaim available memory.
• Resize Images – Batch convert images to your desired file size and format. Simply drag the source images to the tool’s window, specify the desired dimensions/size and output location, and click.
Parallels Desktop 14 Performance
Significant performance improvements include:
• Up to 200 percent performance improvement on the iMac Pro® (audio and video encoding, AI, 3D modelling, cryptography and other complex math calculations workloads) thanks to AVX512 Intel Cannon Lake processor instructions set support
• Up to 80 percent faster application launch
• Up to 10 percent faster boot time
• Up to 30 percent faster suspend operation on APFS partition
• Up to 130 percent more frames per second in Shared Camera
• Up to 17 percent more frames per second in Coherence view mode
The CPU usage indicator has been added to the title bar to give a better understanding of high CPU usage in Windows. Resource Monitor is completely redesigned to show Mac resources along with the impact that multiple virtual machines have on them.
Availability and Pricing
Today, Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac, Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac Pro Edition and Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition are available for subscribers and upgraders from Parallels Desktop 12 and 13, as well as new customers, online at parallels.com/desktop and at local retail and online stores worldwide. Free 14-day full-featured trials are also available for download.
The recommended retail price of Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac is US$79.99 for an annual subscription or US$99.99 for a perpetual license. Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition and Business Edition are each available to new customers for US$99.99 per year. Parallels Desktop 12 and 13 perpetual license customers can upgrade to Parallels Desktop 14 for US$49.99, or upgrade to a Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition subscription for US$49.99 per year. Parallels Desktop subscriptions include a complimentary concurrent subscription to Parallels Toolbox for Mac or Windows, as well as Parallels Access.
Source: Parallels
More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’re going to pollute your mac with Windows, Parallels Desktop 14 is the way to do it!
Love it!
So using Parallels to run Windows on a Mac – does it allow for the use of all processors available and get the full power of the Mac’s components? Years ago it didn’t but things might’ve changed. Been a long time since I used it.
I can’t answer about use of all processors and all of that, but I know it works a lot better than it did a few years ago, I am talking about version 13. I need it for testing websites that I develop, and because the school system I am contracted to allows Mac’s but there are some functionalities in their site and in the services that they contract that just will not function on Mac. There is no point in arguing with them on it. They have some functions that still require Internet Explorer and I am not going to go all kamikaze on the point. I leave Parallels on in the background and it causes no problems. 2015 iMac Fusion Drive 8 gb.
Yes. You can assign as many processors as you want and RAM. On a 5K iMac I can assign up to 8 CPU’s (4 dual cores). I was showing 4 right now. I just changed it to 2 since I don’t need that much power in Windows right now.
270 GB…..very slow download. But I have uploaded a lot of stuff in the last 24 hours, maybe Dish is punishing me.
Mine was 200MB and took about 30 seconds on a 100Mbps cable modem connection.
right, mis-read, its 270 mb but I am on 12mb per second. going to be overr 3 hours when done.
They MUST be throttling you or something else is wrong. 12Mbits/sec is still about 1.5Mbytes per second which should be 3 minutes.
I only upgrade whenever the older version absolutely won’t support the new Mac OSX (and it actually crashes, as opposed to “may have performance problems”). Parallels upgrades are a joke. If I absolutely didn’t need Windows (and if Parallels wasn’t a whole lot better than other solutions) I wouldn’t bother upgrading at all — they’re $49.95 “pseudo-subscription” cost is a bit high (on the plus side, unlike a true subscription I can continue using the older version as long as I don’t upgrade Mac OS too many times).
I’ve got 13. I usually upgrade every other year. I’ll be skipping this one.
This looks like a really good reason to drop 50 bucks. Faster and leaner (OK, I know that’s probably oxymoronic as it relates to WIndows, but…) I’ll be upgrading my copy of Parallels.
I had bought version 13 two months ago and had problems with DirectX 11 support (Unreal engine). I will update and see if things have improved..
On my MacBook Pro 13″ Mid-2012 2.5 GHz i5 w/16 GB RAM and 512 SSD running latest beta of Mojave-
Parallels 14 opened in 5 seconds and Windows 7 was open by 30 seconds (overall including Parallels boot time)
On my iMac 27″ Late-2013 3.5 GHz i7 w/24 GB RAM and 3 TB Fusion drive running latest release of High Sierra-
Parallels 14 opened at 6 seconds and Windows 10 was open by 42 seconds (again overall).
I was really surprised how fast Win-7 was up and running on my laptop and a little disappointed it took longer for Win-10 to load on my desktop.
Not sure if Mojave handles the process better since it is on a older/slower computer or if Windows 10 is slower to load than Windows 7.
Anyhow the startup times are shockingly quick.