Windows 11 for Mac plans confirmed by Parallels

Windows 11 for Mac support plans been confirmed by Parallels Desktop, one of the most popular virtualization apps for macOS. Windows 11 was announced earlier almost a week ago and released as a preview for insiders soon after. Many users, including yours truly, have already rushed to install it on Macs, whether Intel or M1, however, the operating system is not officially supported yet.

Windows 11 on ARM in Parallels Desktop on macOS Monterey

Windows 11 is a major new update to Microsoft’s popular operating system. It features a much needed new design, deep integration for Teams, Android app support, widgets, productivity improvements and much more.

Parallels will be compatible with Windows 11 for Mac

Despite the lack of official support, Windows 11 works well in Parallels, and we have been running it without any hiccups. Although it is not straightforward due to Microsoft’s new hardware requirements such as TPM 2.0, which is not supported by Parallels for M1 Macs yet, there are some workarounds that let users easily bypass the checks. As M1 Macs do not support Bootcamp for Windows, partially due to Microsoft not officially making its Arm version available for purchase, users have to rely on virtualization software for now.

Compared to other virtualization solutions for Macs, Parallels is always quick out of the gate to support new features and hardware. Parallels already supports Windows 10 on ARM on M1 Macs, while VMWare Fusion has yet to release a compatible update that runs natively on Apple Silicon. Parallels 16.5 was released with M1 Mac support and featured 30% better performance, and 250% less energy usage than its Intel version.

Even though Windows 11’s official launch is planned for later this year in October, Nick Dobrovolskiy, SVP of Engineering and Support at Parallels told iMore:

“Since Windows 11 has just been announced recently, the Parallels Engineering team is waiting for the official Windows 11 Insider Preview build to start studying changes introduced in the new OS to deliver full compatibility in future Parallels Desktop updates,”

The company also confirmed that it is working on making sure that Parallels is compatible with macOS Monterey when it is releasd to the public this fall.

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