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Mac virtualization: Parallels and VMware want you to buy new versions | Ars Technica. Parallels desktop 14 vmware free
The good news is that a new version is apparently in the pipeline: a VMware blog entry in August includes details of the latest Tech Preview. This Tech Preview is available free of charge although, of course, you have to be careful when running any preview or beta software and relying on it for important work projects. In other words, Fusion is in limbo at the moment, although the current Fusion 12 version You can download the Tech Preview for free here. Fusion 12 added support for 3D graphics using both DirectX 11 and OpenGL, giving Fusion users access to a wider range of Windows games, as well as many professional graphics and design applications.
That corporate emphasis probably explains why the company has slowed down development of Fusion — which tends to be more of a personal product for individual users. However, this shift in focus does have one welcome benefit. At the same time as launching Fusion 12, VMware also announced that it would release a free version of the program — called Fusion Player — for personal use only, for home users and students.
Windows which launched in July has the potential to really challenge traditional virtualization programs such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. However, at the moment, Windows is still pretty expensive and is very much aimed at large corporate users, rather than the individuals and smaller businesses that tend to use Parallels and Fusion.
Microsoft describes Windows as a Cloud PC, but its technical notes make it clear that Windows is a form of virtual machine. The video image for the Windows desktop on your cloud PC is then streamed to your Mac — or any other device, such as an iPad or even another Windows PC — via your broadband connection.
This form of virtual machine can work well, as long as you have a fast enough — and always on — Internet connection. CodeWeavers CrossOver for Mac is based on Wine see review below , but it gives Wine a slightly more user-friendly interface that is a bit easier to use.
However, there is a free day trial available so that you can see if works with the Windows apps that you need to use before buying. Codeweavers also states that it has been working on native support for ARM processors and has also published a roadmap on its blog, outlining its plans for supporting Apple Silicon as well as ARM hardware in general. It could still be a couple of years before a true native M-series version of CrossOver is available though.
Using dual-boot rather than virtualization technology, Boot Camp provides the best performance for Intel-based Macs that need to run Windows. Instead of creating a virtual machine that allows you to run Mac and Windows apps together at the same time, Boot Camp is a dual-boot system that simply allows you to boot start your Mac using either the native macOS or Windows but not both at the same time.
Thanks to Boot Camp your Mac can act as a straightforward Windows PC, and devote all its processor power and memory to running Windows and your Windows apps. And, crucially, if your Mac has a decent graphics card, it can use the full power of the graphics card to help run your Windows software.
The problem is that, since the release of Fusion 12, it's stalled in place. Yes, Fusion 12 from late could run Windows on an Intel Mac, but Apple has progressed considerably and onto its own chips. While progress has been slow, VMWare has slowly been working towards releasing a version of its software made so that it functions on Apple Silicon, which is available in a Public Tech Preview.
The good news is that it's free to try out the tech preview. The bad news is that it's not easy to start with Windows on Apple Silicon. For a start, it works on the basis that you're going to provide the operating system to install, be it a Linux distribution or Windows.
So you're going to have to download that from Microsoft via its Windows Insider program. Then you have to follow a set of instructions that had to be picked up via a Google search, rather than anything official. This guide on Cellular. FM describes the extremely long process you have to undertake to get to running Windows 11 via VMWare Fusion's tech preview.
Then you have to install Windows to VMWare Fusion, taking care to disable Internet access otherwise it won't work, and then follow other procedures to install VMWare's tools to get the final bits set up. Understandably, a tech preview could require a bit more effort than a full public release, but this is beyond the reach of most average users.
The annoying thing is, once you've got Windows 11 ARM64 installed, it works perfectly adequately. It's just the journey that's the problem. As a more admin-focused tool, it's also understandable that there are a lot of things you can configure within the software. And again, some of this is not end-user-friendly to deal with, but you don't have to touch the more complex items.
Given VMWare's very corporate-focused approach and leaning away from VMWare Fusion's development, it may be quite some time before the Apple Silicon adoption by the main release will happen. Fusion 12 Player is its most basic release, providing all of the essential functionality you need, including installing multiple VMs, DX11 and OpenGL4.
Fusion 12 Pro adds features like creating and managing an encrypted VM, virtual network customization, connections to vSphere and ESXi Server, linked and full clones, remote vSphere host power control, and other more admin-based elements.
If you're a home user, you're presented with two options for virtualization on Apple Silicon. However, it's very hard to advise anyone to go down the route of VMWare Fusion at this point. It's one thing to have a solid toolset in place for Intel Macs, but it's quite another to leave Apple Silicon users out in the cold with a tech preview for devices that are nigh two years old. Not to mention that getting Windows 11 for ARM running on VMWare requires so many steps and messing about in Terminal and the Windows command line to be intimidating to some end users.
Parallels may not be free, but the straightforward process to get started with Windows on Apple Silicon is a world away from the more challenging VMWare experience. The Coherence mode to get Windows apps on the macOS desktop is just a cherry on top. Even if VMWare brings out Fusion 13 with Apple Silicon support, complete with another free-for-non-commercial license, it will have to do a lot to make itself more user-friendly to become recommendable.
Sure, administrators and more technically-minded users will find VMWare Fusion's system a good thing to try, even through morbid curiosity. VirtualBox is now in version 7. To be honest, Oracle is really aiming VirtualBox at large corporations who have a proper IT department to help them out. As we mentioned above, the third technology option — after Boot Camp and virtualisation — is Wine , which allows you to run Windows apps without Windows itself.
Like VirtualBox, Wine is an open-source program that you can download for free. Instead, Wine acts as a kind of software middleman that translates the programming routines — called APIs — in Windows apps so that they can talk directly to macOS, without needing a full copy of Windows itself.
Wine also gets very regular updates from a team of dedicated developers who provide the software for free. The downside is that Wine can be spectacularly confusing for beginners — to the point where we can only really recommend it to hobbyists who like a bit of a challenge. CodeWeavers CrossOver for Mac is a little easier to use than Wine, despite being closely related to the software.
But of course Wine is free, which is a big bonus. Parallels Desktop VMWare Fusion CrossOver Windows Apple Boot Camp. VirtualBox 7. That means employees won't have to be "distracted by unfamiliar Windows and virtualization elements," Parallels said. The business edition has the same pricing as the pro edition.
VMware's Fusion announcement said the new version improves GPU and 3D graphics performance and has a revamped user interface, but the announcement focused mostly on back-end improvements and enterprise capabilities. VMware Fusion's Touch Bar Support is more basic than Parallels', giving you some control over virtual machines and the virtual machine library, but no support for actions within individual Windows applications.
Workstation is also improving the ability to test how applications run over poor network conditions. You must login or create an account to comment. What is that for? It says I can run Windows and hense its apps. The instrallation was easy, but the apps that I installed did not work.
They show that they do but there is no actual result. For instance, I used GoPro Fusion Studio app, and it opened the applicaiton but the videos thumnails are all black. So al the stitches videos are just black color.
I also tried other apps related to linguistic corpora that are identical to what I have on my authentic Windows PC. And, again, the Parallels shows you that the app is running but when you output the result, everything is empty.
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