So where are these 200,000 x86 Apps?

[Richard G.]

The "What's New" in Parallels Desktop 18 on the web site lists this as a "Feature" of Parallels 18:

Work Smarter
Run classic Intel-based (x86) Windows apps on your M series Mac. With more than 200,000 Windows-only apps supported, we have you covered.

Yet playing around with Parallels 18 Desktop on an M1 Mac, it still seems to only support ARM-based operating systems. Was there actually anything added to Parallels 18 that I'm not seeing, or are they just listing Windows 11 ARM's ability to run some Intel-based apps as if it is a feature of Parallels?

 

[Don Sullivan]

Windows 11 on ARM (64-bit) supports running Windows X86 apps natively on the M1 platform. Microsoft built the X86 emulation engine into the Windows OS. You don't have to do anything special. Just download the app and 'most' of them just work normally without doing anything special. I'm running some unique specialty apps like Primaver P6 Scheduling software, etc.. and everything runs just fine.

 

[Richard G.]

That's what I thought. So, like I said. Not really a "feature" of Parallels itself (ie: Parallels can't run x86 code on M1 directly), but rather a feature of Windows 11 ARM.