Other free Parallels programs?

fusion.html.html

VMware Fusion

It's not as good as Parallels but it's free and is the next best one. Bear in mind that with any installation of Windows you're going to need to purchase an activation key unless you already have one.

You'll need to register for a free customer connect account to get a free personal license.

evalcenter

While you will still need to purchase your own ARM version of Windows 11, you can at least get a free virtual machine, other than VirtualBox.

VMware offers a free version for individual users. The current version 13 supports Windows 11 for ARM systems.

Kurt Lang wrote:

VMware offers a free version for individual users. The current version 13 supports Windows 11 for ARM systems.

FWIW, there is a difference between Parallels and VMWare. The former supports 3D/DirectX11 graphics, the latter doesn't.

You will need an ARM version of Windows 11 on an Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M?) Mac and the only VM vendor authorized by Microsoft to run that Windows 11 ARM installation is Parallels. Parallels Desktop Pro will cost about $100 annually for its subscription, and I just renewed mine. There is a 14-day trial. Give up on the notion of free VM software, and I am taking the UTM product performance and features into consideration when I say that.

Two things…

1. VirtualBox on Apple silicon is a work in progress, is very unstable, and one of the VirtualBox moderators refers to it as a "toy".
2. Crossover cannot run Windows. It can run some Windows programs.

Brentman1 wrote:

So virtual box for Apple silicon is in Bata so I may run into bugs while using it

Excerpt from the VirtualBox forum…

And just for clarity (based on additional questions being raised in the forums): VirtualBox is not and never has been an ARM hypervisor. The M1/M2 developer preview relies on an Intel code simulator module to run x86 (32bit) single core guests. Incredibly slowly. It's currently more of a toy than a serious solution to any problem.

There is another program but I'm not sure if it has been updated to work with Ventura with Apple Silicon.

The program is open source and free. It's called Virtual Box. You could download and experiment with it

to see if it will work for you. I'd hope they are working to make it compatible. I've used it for years and it

always worked great until Apple Silicon.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

Also, though it costs money, there is Crossover 22.1 or better that will work as well.

Brentman1 wrote:

Hi, so today I am trying to run Windows on my Macbook Air M1 but Boot camp doesn't seem to be available on my Mac I tried Parallels but it's too much money for me are there any Programs out there that are similar to Parallels but is free no buying a license to use

Thanks,

Brent

Here are your options for running Microsoft Windows on an M1 or M2 Mac: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-using-windows-11-with-mac-computers-with-apple-m1-and-m2-chips-cd15fd62-9b34-4b78-b0bc-121baa3c568c

VMWare may have a "free personal use" license, but as I found it is incredibly difficult to enable it. Their registration process insists that you have to have a valid company name, which in turn forces you to accept their corporate rate. You may need to consult with their customer service to fix this service.

What application do you need that is only available for Windows?

A few to think about ->

Access -> Filemaker Pro has a migration tool for Windows that brings Access data into Filemaker Pro for Mac. MySQL is also available for the Mac.

Project -> Smartsheet

AutoCAD is available for the Mac

ArcGIS -> Cartographica

Games -> M1 and M2 chips support iOS games.

According to this page, VMware does support DirectX11. But that may mean only for Intel installs. No idea if ARM versions would be included. Such as, the top line of Hardware version 20 and later is required. means nothing to me.

That may be just Intel support. Don't know.

I did read an article that stated VMWare Player did not support 3D/DirectX11 for the Windows 11 Arm64 version and Parallels did. They didn't mention the Pro version.

That's a big performance difference. Couldn't tell you if the paid versions of VMware include that support.