I am going to be forced to upgrade my OS to High Sierra by the end of the year. But if I do, then key software will cease functioning and I can't even buy a replacement. (TurboTax 2018 won't run on El Capitan, but only an online version of QuickBooks exists for High Sierra). Can I use Parallels to run El Capitan and its applications?
Hello TresE, You can install OS X El capitan inside Parallels Desktop. There are two ways to install Mac OS X El Capitan into a virtual machine: 1) Using Recovery Partition on an OS X El Capitan host. 2) Using "Install OS X El Capitan.app" downloaded from the AppStore.
Thanks. I will have to have El Capitan installed for me. I had to get the local independent Mac service company install El Capitan for me, because Apple won't let me download it, because I didn't get it from Apple when it was new. (They will only let me download High Sierra). So, to be clear, if I run Parallels, I would have the Mac service company install El Capitan into Parallels? (I don't remember how to do that, but I assume they can figure it out.) So as long as the old software continues to run on my machine (currently, 2011 Macbook Pro), then I should be able to continue to use it? I suggest you advertise this feature. Quickbooks is forcing users to use their online accounting service and Apple is forcing a loss of lots of old software (CS6 and others in my case). Parallels would be a GREAT solution for a lot of people with expensive legacy software.
The trick is to put "Install OS X El Capitan.app" into your /Applications/ folder and then when you start to create your new machine, select "Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file". On this next screen you will see your El Capitan option below: I always have gotten tricked up by this too because Parallels needs to use this to then create a DMG to perform its installation.
Thank you for sharing this workaround with us. Let us know if you need any assistance from Parallels support.
