Big Sur-priseįor several years now, new editions of Parallels Desktop remained in lock step with Apple’s annual software releases. Admittedly, this is a small improvement-one the company doesn’t even mention in release notes!-but the convenience makes a huge difference in everyday use, so we consider this is a must-have upgrade for fellow keyboard jockeys. Imagine the surprise after booting up Mojave for the first time in Parallels Desktop 16 to discover the host software finally-finally!-recognizes the Caps Lock key with a Mac guest. One nagging downside to this otherwise flawless plan was lack of support for the Caps Lock key, which has never properly worked in Parallels within Mac guests. The solution was to install macOS Mojave as a Parallels virtual machine to run AccountEdge and other 32-bit refugees like a Primera Bravo SE disc printer. Developer Acclivity cowardly backpedaled on 64-bit Catalina support earlier this year, claiming its 30-year-old codebase “proved too outdated” for engineers to make work. One rationale for clinging to old software was venerable accounting software AccountEdge Pro (formerly MYOB). Rather than occasional use with Windows or to dabble in other operating systems, Parallels Desktop became a lifeline for running 32-bit Mac applications effectively abandoned after last year’s “app-ocalypse.” Daily driverĪlthough many survived the rocky transition to macOS Catalina relatively unscathed, the move prompted us to rely more heavily on virtualization. CorelĪutomatically keep VMs from hogging drive space with the new “Reclaim disk space on shutdown” option. Check a box, and PD16 takes care of this housekeeping automatically, every time you shut down that VM. Last but not least, the new “Reclaim disk space on shutdown” option now makes the process of recovering storage temporarily consumed by a guest OS effortless. PD16 now supports everything available on shared printers connected to a host Mac, enabling welcome features like the ability to use envelopers or change paper sizes as well as duplex printing. The immediate result is that PD16 now launches up to twice as fast as last year’s impressive version 15, as well as being 20 percent faster at resuming a Windows virtual machine (VM) or when using software which takes advantage of DirectX.įor those who frequently print documents from Windows, there’s more good news. In its place, Apple incorporated new macOS frameworks for developers to tap into. This enormous effort was necessary because Apple is kicking third-party kexts to the curb once and for all when macOS Big Sur arrives this fall. According to the developer, Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac is the result of a “25-man-year effort” to ditch traditional virtualization kernel extensions (“kexts” in code-speak), the stuff which allows this software to efficiently run other operating systems in tandem with macOS in the first place.
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