Parallels Desktop 17 is out
There is also enough in it for people who want to run Windows on a Mac: you can run Windows 11 on a Mac with improved M1 support, gaming on Windows goes a lot better and a virtual TPM chip for Windows is available. Parallels 17 is also noticeably faster: switching to Windows or Linux is now 38% faster and OpenGL performs up to six times faster. Apple Silicon Macs get a 33% performance boost on Windows startup and 20% on disk activity when using the Windows 10 Insider Preview.
If you already want to run the beta of macOS Monterey, you can do that with Parallels 17, on both an Intel Mac and an Apple Silicon Mac. On a Mac with Intel, you can get the usual support for Windows versions dating back to Windows XP and Windows 2000. As for the Mac, you can go back to OS X Lion. Linux support is also quite extensive on an Intel Mac, while on an M1 you're a bit more limited: you can choose from four distributions, including Ubuntu and Fedora.
Parallels is especially proud to have partnered with Apple to create the world's first prototype macOS Monterey virtual machine on an M1 Mac.
For those who want to use Windows, it is good to know that the features and promised performance are based on preview builds of Windows. Virtual machines on an M1 Mac are limited to ARM-based operating systems, so the ARM previews of Windows 10 and 11 must be used for that. Eventually, Parallels will provide full support for Windows 11 when the operating system is officially released.
It's nice that drag-and-drop works between Mac and Windows apps. For example, with Monterey's Quick Note feature, you can extract content from any Windows app and convert it into a note. This release has a lot to offer. If you depend on Windows apps, if you want to test Monterey in advance or if you want to play Windows games on your Mac, it's worth upgrading.
Parallels Desktop 17 can be purchased in two ways : for a one-time fee of €99.99 or for an annual fee of €79.99. The latter seems like a worse deal, but then its ‘free’ upgrades to newer versions included. ‘Free’ It's in quotes here, because you'll pay for it in the end. Subscribers can also access their Mac from their iOS/Android device or browser.