Boot Camp used to be the way to go for running Windows on a Mac, but Apple stopped supporting the feature ever since it introduced Apple Silicon. These days, virtualization is the way to go, and while it was difficult for a while due to Windows not having proper publicly available Arm builds, that's no longer the case. These days, many software solutions let you run Windows on a Mac.

But Parallels has always been at the forefront of that, being one of the first to support Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, and even getting official recognition from Microsoft. If you're looking to run Windows on your Mac, Parallels is definitely your best option, and here are just a few reasons why.

4 Easy setup

Parallels does all the work

Right off the bat, Parallels is fantastic because it's the easiest way to set up a Windows 11 virtual machine on your Mac. It downloads Windows 11 for you right there and you don't have to fiddle with downloading an ISO and then selecting or anything like that. Setting up Parallels is very straightforward, and installing Windows 11 in it is also extremely easy.

Parallels even simplifies the Windows 11 out-of-box experience (OOBE) by simply skipping all of it. You barely have to do anything during the setup process, and your Windows account is automatically created as a local account, so you don't have to worry about using a Microsoft account or being bombarded with Microsoft's pushy ads. The final install is very lean overall, without most of the startup tasks you'd get in a normal PC, because realistically, you don't need them.

With a solution like VMware Fusion, I had to go through the normal setup process with my Microsoft account, which takes a lot longer. And while UTM also skipped the Microsoft account requirement, it still took a good bit more work to download the ISO by myself.

3 Support for high refresh rates

Take advantage of ProMotion

Another notable feature of Parallels, albeit a somewhat smaller one, is that your Windows VMs will actually support the high-refresh rate on your Mac, whether that's a MacBook or an external monitor. On my 144Hz panel, running the fully contained VM let me go up to 120Hz, which is already a step up from most competing VM software. When I enable Coherence (more on that later), the Windows apps actually seem to be able to leverage the full 144Hz of my monitor, and that setting seemed to stick after going back to the full Windows mode, though I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, personally.

On competing tools like VMWare Fusion, I was stuck at 60FPS. Even increasing the resolution of the VM required installing the VMWare guest tools, which Parallels set up out of the box. You can resize your Parallels window at will and Windows 11 actually responds to the resolution change fairly smoothly, whereas on VMWare the transition

2 It integrates seamlessly with macOS

It's more than a VM

Most virtual machine software, such as VMware Fusion or UTM, has a very clear goal of running an entire operating system inside your current one, but that system is generally completely isolated from your host operating system. There are ways you can connect them, but it's usually very limited.

Parallels is different, though. When you set up Windows 11 inside Parallels, all of your macOS files are accessible in Windows, and your Windows files are stored in the same structure as the macOS ones. Sure, that may remove some layer of compartmentalization, but this allows for seamless integration between the two operating systems. For example, I much prefer the cropping tool in the Windows 11 Photos app to Apple's Preview, so while I'm in macOS, I can right-click a file and open it directly in one of my Windows apps. Or, if I'm already in Windows, I can browse my Mac files and modify them right there without setting anything up.

In fact, even your Mac apps appear in the Windows 11 Start menu, so it's always easy to open whatever you need without having to switch contexts first. It's really easy to use.

1 Coherence

Your Windows apps are now Mac apps

This could fall under the umbrella above, but I think it deserves a spotlight on its own. One of the best features of Parallels is called Coherence, and this allows even more seamless integration between your Mac host and the Windows VM. Coherence dismisses the Windows desktop and makes it so that your Windows apps open directly in the Mac desktop, just as if they were macOS apps. The end result is something akin to using WINE or CrossOver, but those apps use translation layers that may not work for every program, so Parallels should give you better compatibility, assuming the program you’re using at least supports Windows on Arm. What’s more, options like Wine and CrossOver aren’t VMs at all, so you can run Windows apps, but you can’t run Windows itself.

Parallels gives you the best of both worlds. You can run the full Windows 11 desktop with all the tools you want, or you can make your apps appear in macOS as if they were running natively, and you can easily switch between these two modes depending on your needs.

Parallels is the best VM solution for Mac

These three features in Parallels make it the obvious choice for running Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac, but frankly, there are even more advantages to consider. For one thing, during my testing, Parallels easily seemed like the fastest option of the bunch, with pretty smooth performance on an entry-level Mac Mini. If you haven’t yet, you can check out Parallels below. It is a paid app, but if you rely on Windows for work, it’s worth the asking price.

• Parallels Desktop 20

  $100 at Parallels