Coherence and Shared Profile for macOS VMs

Since macOS 10.12 is the last version with support for 32bit Apps, I'm running it on a VM to be able to use some of my older (but once expensive) programs. But the integration into the host OS is lacking most of the features that are available for other OSes:

• While I can switch the machine to Coherence mode after starting it up, there's no option to start directly into Coherence
  
• In Coherence mode, there's no option to show the guest's programs in the host's dock
• In Coherence mode, I end up having 2 Docks on my screen, and the guest's menu bar being displayed below that of the host instead of replacing it
• There is no option to share my folders, like Pictures, Documents, Downloads, ... with the guest.

All these problems seem easy to fix (well, I don't know about the last one), so it would really be great if you could just do that.

 

Hi ChristianS20,
Thank you for suggestion!
Items #1-3 are clear.
On the #4 - you mean the lack of a Shared Profile feature, when host Mac user folders are available under the same names/places in guest, right? Now you can reach host Mac folders by browsing to Parallels Shared Folder in guest and it is not that convenient as Shared Profile.

Can you name 32bit apps titles that you are will run in macOS VM? We know some, but all of them are from big well doing developers and we believe they will update them in time for 10.14.

 

#4: yes, that's what I meant. And yes, it's just not not that convenient. And some unlovely side effect of the Parallels Shared Folder solution: the guest OS seems to treat the host OS's folders as being on some 'foreign' file system, so whenever I interact with files on the host, additional ._ macOS metadata files are created.

The 32bit apps I'm referring to have been available in 64bit for some time now. Frankly it's just that I don't have a few thousand euros lying around to purchase new licenses.

 

With Apple ending 32-bit application support, it has put hundreds upon hundreds of extremely useful apps in sever jeopardy. No one is really happy about this and we don't know what to do about it. Apple simply doesn't give two craps about our needs in this respect and it is very upsetting.

Parallels and Corel have a pristine opportunity to make running 32-bit apps a huge part of marketing going forward. There's no doubt that we're going to need superior 32-bit app performance for at least the next several+ years.

Please work from this standpoint for the next major release of Parallels. We need a better Coherence mode for running apps along side Catalina native run apps. We need better graphical acceleration for macOS 32-bit apps such as graphical apps or even games. This is going to be a very important thing for a large number of macOS users who have been disenfranchised and outright angered by Apple.

 

I should mention that two factors here are going to be important to all of us since 32-bit app support will be frequent:
1- startup time needs to improve for macOS or it needs to sleep and come back to life faster. We need to be able to have as little overhead as possible. Too bad a LXC (Linux Containers)-like solution isn't available that would use less resources for additional instances of macOS!
2- graphical performance is really important. I know that adding graphical acceleration seems to be a bear of a task, but it's just so important at this point to have superior graphical performance and functionality for running older apps like FCP Studio and other such intensive apps that Apple has flushed down the toilet with this update.

 

3- superior mouse/cursor performance needs to be addressed. Right now Mojave cursor performance is just not that great. It doesn't always (or often) feel mac-like in scrolling on pages and documents.

 

Catalina sucks. I can't play my favorite games anymore, that dropped support for 32-bit apps really sucked and doesn't make sense :^( plus it's still so buggy and unstable. I did reinstall Mojave, for me it's Apple's best OS so far.

 

Hello,
I don't know if I am the only one who needs this feature: I have installed MacOS Catalina on my Mac mini 2018 and I virtualized High Sierra to be able to use some 32 bit applications I still need. Unfortunately, to use them I need to start each time the virtual machine and enter High Sierra completely, while I would like the possibility to simply use 32 bit Mac appls installed under virtualized High Sierra in coherence mode, as I can do with Windows applications.

 

Definitely not the only person to want better support for virtualized MacOS machines. I purchased Parallels for this express purpose (I don't use Windows), and I have to say that I am sorely disappointed with the lack of integration support for Mac VMs.

People use MacOS because they like MacOS. If they preferred Windows, they would be using it as their primary system. There are a lot of good reasons why a person would like to run MacOS under a VM with a MacOS host, and since Parallels purports to be the best Virtualization software for the Mac, one would think that they would put a little more effort into better support for MacOS VMs, especially with respect to integration with the Host.

If I enter coherence mode with a MacOS VM, I get a second dock, and a second status/menu bar -- horrendous. I know you can hide them, but that isn't at all "coherent". It's incoherent.

What would be most useful, is if there was a way to just run a specific app from the VM, and have it in its own window on the host, show up in the host dock (with any notification icons), and have its status/menu bar active when the application is active.

After 16 major versions of Parallels, you'd think there'd be a little more effort made into integration with Mac VMs. Instead, support told me that coherence mode isn't even supported for a Mac VM. It's an abandoned feature.

 

What I really liked about Coherence Mode in older versions of Parallels Desktop, was that the menu bar of the host macOS was hidden.
I know it is possible to achieve that by adding the appropriate setting for LSUIPresentationMode to the info.plist inside ~/Parallels/"YourVirtualMachine".pvm/"YourVirtualMachine".app/Contents/ using Terminal:

Code:

plutil -insert LSUIPresentationMode -float 3 ~/Parallels/"YourVirtualMachine".pvm/"YourVirtualMachine".app/Contents/info.plist

This will add the following lines to the info.plist:

Code:

    <key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
    <real>3</real>

It also keeps the host's Dock out of the way so it doesn't open when hovering over it.

However, unlike older versions of Parallels Desktop, in present ones there is no way to get the guest's menu bar in place of the host's menu bar. That is, (with described addition to the info.plist) instead of the host's menu bar, with a height of 23 px a "bar" with the host's desktop background is shown. And right under that the guest's menu bar is displayed.

Though clicking on that empty "desktop bar" may be used as a way to bring one back to the host system, that also happens when clicking the guest's menu bar and missing it by just a px or more. Now as moving the cursor to the very top of the screen and clicking the menu bar is something very natural and done quite frequently, this behaviour is very annoying as it disrupts the workflow.

I know that making the menu bar invisible and allowing an application (in this case a Parallels VM) to use its space, in older macOS versions could easily be achieved by editing the info.plist, while Apple removed that possibility from newer macOS versions. However, I also know that it is still possible to achieve that behaviour by implementing it in the program's code before compilation.

Therefore I'd very much appreciate if you'd re-add this functionality in future versions of Parallels Desktop. For macOS guests, that would be very helpful.

 

Thanks for the question LucaG3 and thanks for the respond DerekS8. It took already many hours to find the solution, which does not exist.
The reason I need an iOS VM is because I use multiple software that only works till El Capitan (iOS 10.11.6).
Coherence would make my work much easier. Unfortunately Parallels decide different.
Hopefully they listen to our request to make it possible, else it will be cheaper for me to buy a second Mac to run this no longer supported software.

 

I've been interested in this topic ever since Apple started phasing out 32-bit application support in its macOS releases. I'd love to see Parallels support Coherence mode for macOS VMs so I would not need to run multiple (headless) legacy Macs just run Mojave to service older 32-bit apps (and printer hardware). I access my legacy Macs via Apple Remote Desktop, but that can sometimes be a real pain. Coherence mode would hugely benefit my workflow, and my monthly utility bill. It seems like such a logical feature to include for Mac VMs since they do so for Windows VMs. My guess is there may be significant technical obstacles for the developers or the feature would have been implemented Mac VMs long ago.

 

I'm with you all. I'd love to be able to right-click on a file on the host Mac and use the Open With quick menu to open up a particular application on the virtual machine with the older version of macOS installed and run the 32-bit app seamlessly. Or at least be able to put the older application shortcut on the host Mac dock.