One of the most useful new features falls into the category of “why didn’t this happen sooner?” You can now drag highlighted text or photos from a document or website in the host operating system and drop them into a document running in the virtual machine.(Parallels executives say 80% of Parallels users run Windows in Coherence.) Now, such system events occur in a windowed mode. Previously, when performing a system function such as installing updates or shutting down, the Windows went full-screen. Coherence, in which the Windows desktop vanishes and Windows apps appear on the Mac desktop alongside Mac apps, has been improved.Previously, setting up Windows virtual machines often required tweaking resource settings for memory and processors, but an automatic setting handles this for you.A new display driver improves the way the Windows 10 and 11 interface responds, and improves video playback.DirectX graphics perform 28% better, the company says. On M1-based Macs, the Windows 10 Insider Preview launches up to 33% faster, has 20% faster disc performance. Corel says Parallels has performance gains in a variety of metrics on both kinds of Macs, including 38 percent faster resumes from suspension for Windows and Linux six times faster OpenGL graphics and a 25% boost for 2D graphics.

Parallels 17 can only run Windows 10 and 11 from Microsoft, only macOS Monterey and only four flavors of Linux. However, the guest operating system options are more limited on an M1 Mac. And the Intel version officially supports 12 different distros of Linux. You can also run as a guest OS legacy versions of macOS back to OS X Lion. On an Intel Mac, as in the past you can run older versions of Windows, going all the way back to Windows 2000.

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