Now Windows 11 also runs on Mac

Apple has yet to launch macOS Monterey for its desktops and notebooks, but Parallels Desktop 17.1 is already available for the Cupertino company's next operating system. The new software was released shortly before the Apple event to be held today, more precisely at 19:00 Italian time, during which it is expected that the company will unveil when macOS Monterey will be officially available, in addition to presenting its MacBook Pros. latest generation, which should offer a renewed design and an Apple Silicon chip even more powerful than the current M1. On top of that, Parallels 17.1 improves Windows performance on Macs.

Parallels Desktop 17 virtualization software released last August already had general support for macOS Monterey and Windows 11 on both x86 and Mac Apple Silicon , but since neither operating system was released at the time, it was unclear how the final versions of the two OSs would work with the program. At the moment, Parallels claims that Parallels Desktop 17.1 now fully supports Apple's upcoming operating system and Windows 11. Plus, you can now copy and paste between macOS Monterey and a virtual machine.

Credit: Parallels Booting Windows 11 on Apple's Macs is complicated because Microsoft's latest operating system requires TPM support and Apple's Macs don't have it. To this end, Parallels had to introduce default support for vTPM to provide compatibility on both Apple x86 and Apple Silicon computers. One thing to note is that Microsoft doesn't officially support Apple Silicon or booting Windows 11 in a virtualized environment (at least for now).

Elena Koryakina, Parallels Vice President of Engineering, said:

Knowing that Parallels Desktop plays a vital role in enabling users to run the latest versions of Windows on their favorite Mac device, we have developed a simple solution to help all people use Windows 11 by enabling vTPM by default on all Mac devices. The latest version of Parallels Desktop also builds on our customers' top demands with new 3D and gaming integrations to further enhance the user experience.

Among other improvements, Parallels notes an increase in graphics performance in numerous Windows games, including (but not limited to): World of Warcraft, Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, Tomb Raider 3, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, World of Tanks and Raft. Last, but not least, Parallels Desktop 17.1 adds VirGL support in the Virtio GPU to enable Linux 3D acceleration on all supported Macs.