“Parallels Desktop is celebrating its tenth birthday this year, and its regular cycle of annual updates has helped to consolidate its position as the leading virtualization tool for Mac users who need to run Windows apps on their office computers,” Cliff Joseph reports for ZDNet.
“Last year’s update followed the launch of Windows 10; it was a major upgrade that focused on supporting new Windows technologies, such as the Cortana voice-driven virtual assistant,” Joseph reports. “This year’s Parallels Desktop 12 is a more modest update, but it does include a number of useful features that make it a worthwhile upgrade for existing users.”
“Some of the new features in Parallels Desktop 12 are clearly aimed at home users, such as the ability to run the Xbox streaming app for Windows on the Mac. But there are also a number of timesaving improvements that will appeal to business users,” Joseph reports. “Parallels continues to finetune the program’s performance, and we found that we were able to suspend or resume a Windows 10 virtual machine on our office iMac in just three seconds — that’s around 50 percent faster than with the previous version… With regular updates that support the latest features in both Mac and Windows operating systems, Parallels Desktop 12 looks set to maintain its lead over virtualization rivals such as VMWare Fusion.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, if you have to do it, Parallels is the smoothest way to run Windows on your Mac.
Parallels is much slower than VMWare Fusion.
I have always read the opposite.
In my testing I have never known that to be true. For running Windows on a Mac, Parallels has always provided the best experience.
You are incorrect. Parallels is much faster than fusion, at least now and it has been for the past 7 years. Fusion has more support for obscure Windows apps and enterprise compatibility, although that has changed too. Honestly, with our experience parallels is a much better designed application and works much better.
Parallels is much better than Fusion. Especially on GPU demanding content.
I have used VMWare Fusion for years. I’ll keep using it until someday if they stop making new updates.
That’s not true but even if it was Fusion has been discontinued.
I have been a Parallels user since version 3. A few quick comments:
1) Whether you like it or not its basically subscription software. If you want to use the latest versions of either Windows or MacOS you have to upgrade.
2) Paying 49.95 a year to have access to Windows sucks but if you are like me and MUST use Visio, Excel (with heavy macros), and MapInfo it is a necessary evil. I have NEVER used nor tried VMWare but Paralles is rock solid and and runs like a champ.
3) Parallels KNOWs you need Windows and works to make sure you MUST upgrade. If you are a casual Windows user I would try something else. I tried to “skip” upgrades but you can’t, especially if you want your upgrade pricing. Don’t buy Parallels unless you are cool with paying $50 a year from now on…
They bleed you dry with forced paid upgrades. Frequently, there is no warning that updating mac OS will render your copy useless without purchasing a new version.
It is as if they are in cahoots with Apple. Apple keeps giving up OS updates that we don’t want and Parallels charges us to use them.
Neither VMWare or Parallels show any sign of catching up with Microsoft’s DirectX technology, which is required for modern 3D games. They’re both stuck on DirectX 9. When asked whether they’ll support DirectX 10 (not to mention 11) their only response, for years now, has been to ‘wait and see.’
*Discontentment* 😛
I’m running Parallels 11 on my 5k iMac and 3D games run fine on it. Before you couldn’t have even imagined running anything more than a Text program at snail speed.
I’m about to dump VMWare fusion because of a crazy problem that even they have no clue how to fix. When running Win10, I can drag stuff from win10 desktop to the Mac desktop, but cannot drag into Win10 desktop from the MAC desktop. One way street. Called their tech support and they said, this is impossible. Well, not only is it possible, it is happening and there is no fix apparently. No fix for over 6 months, guess it is time to trash VMware fusion.