Parallels Desktop for Mac System Requirements

11 users found this article helpful

To install and set up Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac, you need:

  Minimum
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

Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor

 Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9 or Xeon processor
Memory 4 GB of RAM 16 GB of RAM or more
Storage

500 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 Intel, AMD Radeon or NVIDIA AMD Radeon Pro graphics card
Operating System macOS Catalina 10.15 (when released)
macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer
macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or newer
macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or newer

macOS Catalina 10.15 (when released)

DirectX 11 requires at least macOS Mojave 10.14.4, but works best on macOS 10.15 Catalina.

 

 

Internet connection is required for product activation, updates and select features.

Supported Guest Operating Systems

  • Windows 10
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 8
  • 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) 7 and 6
  • CentOS Linux 7 and 6
  • Fedora Linux 30* and 29
  • Ubuntu 19.04, 18.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS
  • Debian GNU/Linux 9 and 8
  • Suse Linux Enterprise 15
  • OpenSUSE Linux  15.1 and 15
  • Linux Mint 19 and 18
  • Kali 2019 and 2018
  • Elementary 5
  • Manjaro 18
  • Mageia 7 and 6
  • Gentoo Linux **
  • Solaris 11 and 10 **
  • openBSD 6 **
  • FreeBSD 12 and 11 **
  • openVZ 7
  • eComStation 2 and 1.2 **
  • ReactOS 0.4 **
  • Android OS*
  • macOS Catalina 10.15 (when released)
  • 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

*Only the version downloaded with help of the Installation Assistant with 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 2.6.29–5.1.

PC system requirements to move your PC to your Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent)

PC system requirements to move your PC to your 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. Download the Parallels Transporter Agent. 

To install and set up Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac, you need:

Hardware:

Mac Software:

Guest Operating Systems:

*Only the one downloaded with help of Installation Assistant.

**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. They are not on the list because we didn't test them in our lab yet or we found some critical issues.
You can download Parallels Desktop Trial here and install an operating system of your choice and if it doesn't work and you believe it should be supported, let us know at Parallels Forum.

PC system requirements to move your PC to your Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent)

To install and set up Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac, you need:

Hardware:

Software:

Supported Guest Operating Systems:

*- Only the one downloaded with help of Installation Assistant.

** - 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. They are not on the list because we didn't test them in our lab or found some critical issues. You can download Parallels Desktop Trial here 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.

To download the latest Parallels Desktop 13 build please click here.

PC system requirements to move your PC to your Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent)

To install and set up Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac, you need:

Hardware:

Software:

Supported 32-bit Operating Systems for virtual machines:

*Only appliances downloaded within New Virtual Machine Wizard are supported.

Supported 64-bit Operating Systems for virtual machines:

To download the latest Parallels Desktop 12 build please click here.

PC system requirements to move your PC to your Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent)

Supported Windows and Linux versions:

 

Was this article helpful?

Tell us how we can improve it.