Parallels Desktop for Mac computers with Apple M2 chips

Hello @harryordinary ,
Our engineers have sent you a response yesterday. Kindly check your inbox.
If you have any questions, reply to the email, please.

 

Question. For most folks gaming are they using the Standard Edition or the Pro Edition? (planning on Running Parallels on a 14 inch MBP (M2 Max with 96 GB Ram) Just trying to see which to get that would be best for games like starwars battlefront II (and some other EA Origins games). Thanks! Jeff

 

Hello all!
Hoping to get some advice on RAM.
I am preparing to purchase an M2 MacBook Air. I plan to run Dragon Professional 16 in Parallels 18 under Windows 11 for ARM.
I am tempted to get the maximum 24GB of RAM so that I can allocate at least 8GB of RAM to the VM and possibly more if necessary, and because I plan to keep the machine for many years. (I am replacing a 2014 MacBook!) Is this sound reasoning? Or do you think I should just go with 16GB?
Thanks!

 

Max out your ram if you are able. When using VMs it will be worth it. That said I have a 16GB MacBook Pro M1 that runs fine with multiple VMs running.

 

Thanks, BobW11!

I'm actually torn at the moment between the MacBook Air with 24GB of RAM and the 14" MacBook Pro with 16GB. I plan to get a 1TB SSD, and with those specs the machines are almost exactly the same price. Given my use-case, what would you recommend?

I will be using the vm almost exclusively for dictation, running Dragon in conjunction with Word under Windows 11. Meanwhile, I'll be doing pretty much everything else on the Mac side (Office for Mac, Safari and other browsers with multiple tabs open, iTunes, etc.). It would be nice to be able to do normal, casual stuff on the Mac side (Safari with 20-30 tabs, iTunes, Mail, etc.) while simultaneously running Dragon and Word in the vm.

 

Oh, and would there be any advantage to having the MBP fan in this case, or is the risk of overheating the MBA low?

 

Thanks, MichaelH63!

OK, that settles it; I'm going to go for the 1TB/24GB MBA.

I can't imagine spending more for a 15" MBA if one is announced at WWDC, but maybe I'll wait to see if the price of the existing line goes down in the wake of any announcements.

Thanks for the guidance, folks--it's much appreciated!

 

Thanks for the tip on WWDC! I'm not tempted by the 15" MacBook Air, but I appreciate the price drop on the 13".

I've been checking Activity Monitor on my current 2014 MacBook Pro which has 16GB of RAM, and to be honest my memory pressure stays in the green even when running Dragon Professional 16 in Windows 10 under Parallels while simultaneously running a bunch of stuff on the Mac side (30 Safari tabs with a video running in one of them, Mail, Messages, Word, etc.). It's tempting to save money by going for 16GB on the new MBA too, but do you think I'd regret it in the long run?

 

OK, thanks!

 

Hello. Does anyone have performance feedback about using Windows 11 Pro on a MacBook Air with Apple M2 processor? Does it run efficiently? Does the MacBook get hot?

 

Sorry in advance for my poor english, venice italy man here used to write and speak decently well, but 3-months coma subsequent to cancer surgery gone bad forced me to learn a lot of things almost from scratch. Bed+physio+wheelchair and stuff for over 2 years.

I want my job back again, this year.
I have an Intel MacBook Pro 15" 2016 with a couple of Parallels Desktop Pro VMs with Windows 10 on: one for my job with complex applications and configurations, and one for games (they're not AAA).
My MacBook cannot be upgraded to this year's new OS, and it also seems a bit slow on my last games (macOS's and VM Windows's). Moreover some licenses have expired the time I was in hospital (Parallels, MSOffice, editor, etc), so I was wondering if a new Silicon M2/Mx Pro/Max could bring a new modern life.

I was said I could not use those VMs Intel-->Silicon unchanged on Parallels 18. Is it possibile to convert their macOS files in a way, to have them work the best they can on the new MacBook?
Reinstalling the job's VM as a brand new on Silicon will be a pain... you got me. It also will require to get back to the Office, and right now I physically can't.
I don't want to think my only chance is to stick to my 2016 computer...

Thanx in advance,
A.

 

A quick update and thank you:

I have been using Dragon Professional 16 on a MacBook Air M2 with 24 GB of RAM (8GB devoted to the Windows 11 virtual machine) for several days now under Parallels 18, and it has been working perfectly.

Whereas on my old 2014 Intel MacBook Pro rig I could no longer run Word for more than a few seconds without running into trouble, I can now I can keep a Windows vm open indefinitely in the background, using Dragon to dictate into Word while using the MacBook's native Voice Control active on the Mac side. (I personally do not find Voice Control to be good enough to dictate articles for my work as a journalist, but it is great for emails and the like.)

Activity Monitor shows that all of this generates negligible memory pressure and at most moderate CPU usage, even when I am running Safari, Edge, and multiple other apps. Furthermore, the fanless MacBook Air does not heat up at all under this kind of load--whereas my 2014 MacBook Pro used to get hot enough to fry eggs despite having the loudest fan imaginable.

Thanks to everyone for their advice, and for pushing me to get the 24GB of RAM!

AG

 

I am running a MacBook Air with 16 gigs and the M2 chip and have noticed it getting hot at all.

 

Same here; I'm running it on a MacBook Air M2 and it doesn't get hot at all.

 

Does anyone know if Quicken apps can run on a MacBook Pro with an M2 processor using Parallels Desktop for Mac with Apple M chips?

 

Yes, you can also ask on the Quicken user forums (https://community.quicken.com/discussions).

 

Thank you! I have posted on the Quicken Forum but no response yet.
My Intel based MacBook died recently and I would like confirmation that the Quicken Home and Business Windows program can run on a MacBook M2 machine using Parallels with the ARM version of Windows 11...run Quicken Windows in that virtual machine.... I have a new MacBook on order. Would like to still be able to run Quicken H&B on the new machine...

 

Is it possible to enable HyperV on Windows11 running in Parallels 18 on a Mac with the M2 silicon chip?

 

I read the article here:
https://kb.parallels.com/116239

I am on a Mac M2 machine.
When I follow the instructions for enabling nested virtualization, I get this page -- the checkbox that the article refers to is not there.
The article says "Note: this feature is currently not supported in Parallels Desktop on Mac computers with Apple M1 chip."

Is it also the case that this feature is not currently supported on Mac computers with the M2 chip? If so, when will this feature be coming to the M2 machines?