Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac System Requirements and Supported Guest Operating Systems
The Parallels® Desktop 17 system requirements for hardware, supported host and guest operating systems (OSs), are fully listed below. We encourage every potential or existing customer to view the requirements for Parallels Desktop before downloading or making their purchase. Users may be pleasantly surprised at the incredible performance of Windows, Linux and other popular OSs on their Mac with Parallels Desktop.
Supported Mac Configurations:
Check your Mac hardware to ensure you can run Parallels Desktop on your system without experiencing compatibility issues. The Parallels team wants to ensure every customer gets the most out of Parallels Desktop and the virtual machines (VMs) they create.
| Minimum Requirements To run most applications such as Microsoft Office, accounting, trading, SAP, Matlab and more. | Best performance For graphics-intensive applications, high loads, and running multiple virtual machines. | |
| Processor | Apple M1 chip, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor | Apple M1 chip, Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9 or Xeon processor |
| Memory | 4 GB of RAM | 16 GB of RAM or more |
| Storage | 600 MB for Parallels Desktop application installation Additional disk space for the guest operating system (at least 16 GB is required for Windows 10) | SSD drive |
| Graphics | Apple M1 chip, Intel, AMD Radeon, or NVIDIA | Apple M1 chip, AMD Radeon Pro graphics card |
| Operating System | macOS 12 Monterey (when released) macOS Big Sur 11.1 or newer macOS Catalina 10.15.7 or newer macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or newer | macOS 12 Monterey (when released) macOS Big Sur 11.1 or newer DirectX 11 requires at least macOS Mojave 10.14, but works best on macOS 10.15 Catalina and newer |
Please note: Internet connection is required for product activation, updates, and select features.
Supported Guest Operating Systems that can be created as Parallels Desktop Machines
Mac with Apple M1 chip
Only ARM versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 (when released)***
- Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview***
Learn how to install Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview in this video. Additional information on the M1 experience may be found in this article. Windows ARM can run most of the regular Windows x86 applications. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install the application of your interest. If it doesn’t work, let us know at Parallels Forum.
- Ubuntu Linux 20.10, 20.04
- Fedora Workstation 34, 33-1.2
- Debian GNU/Linux 10.7
- Kali Linux 2021.1
- macOS Monterey 12 (when released)
Mac with Intel processors
Only x86 versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 (when released)
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 (SP0-SP1)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Vista Home, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows XP (SP0-SP3)
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8, 7 and 6
- CentOS Linux 8, 7, 6
- Fedora Linux 34, 33, 32, 31
- Ubuntu 21.04, 20.10, 20.04, 19.04, 18.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 10, 9
- Suse Linux Enterprise 15
- OpenSUSE Linux 15.2, 15.1, 15
- Linux Mint 20, 19, 18
- Kali 2020.2, 2019, 2018
- Elementary OS 5
- Manjaro 21, 18
- Mageia 7
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11, 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 12, 11 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2, 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS*
- macOS Monterey 12 (when released)
- macOS Monterey 12.0
- macOS Big Sur 11.0
- macOS Catalina 10.15
- macOS Mojave 10.14.x
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.x
- macOS Sierra 10.12.x
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.x
- OS X Yosemite 10.10.x
- OS X Mavericks 10.9.x
- OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.x
- OS X Lion 10.7.x
- OS X Lion Server 10.7.x
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6.x
- Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.x
- and many more…
*Only the version downloaded with the help of the Installation Assistant in Parallels Desktop.
**Parallels Tools are not available for this operating system.
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install an operating system of your choice. If it doesn’t work and you believe it should be supported, let us know at Parallels Forum.
Parallels Tools for Linux require X Window System version 1.15-1.20 and Linux Kernel version 2.6.29-5.5.
Moving your PC?
PC system requirements to move your PC to your Intel Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent):
- 700 MHz (or higher) x86 or x64 processor (Intel or AMD)
- 256 MB of RAM
- 50 MB of available hard disk space for installation of Parallels Transporter Agent
- Ethernet or WiFi network adapter for migrating over network
- External USB drive for migrating via external disk
- Supported Windows: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 *
*To migrate Windows Vista or older, Transporter Agent from Parallels Desktop 13 should be used.
Note: Parallels Transporter Agent is not available for Mac with Apple M1 chip.
***Running VMs on Apple M1 Mac computers in Parallels Desktop 17 requires ARM-based operating systems (OSs). Customers who install guest operating systems in Parallels Desktop virtual machines are responsible for making sure that they are compliant with each OSs’ end-user licensing agreement (EULA).
We hope this resource is helpful for you to navigate your experience with Parallels Desktop. For 15 years, Parallels has been a leading choice and award-winning solution for more than 7 million Mac users to run Windows on Mac. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact our support team on Facebook @ParallelsInc; or Twitter @ParallelsCares.
