Parallels has released version 20.2 of its Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software. The update launches an early technology preview for importing and running x86_64 virtual machines initially created on Intel-based Macs on Apple silicon Macs (be aware of the preview’s significant limitations—Parallels says, “It is slow, really slow.”). Parallels Desktop 20.2 also adds Apple Intelligene’s Writing Tools as a right-click menu item to the Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook (Classic) apps running in a Windows virtual machine, resolves an issue that prevented Writing Tools from launching correctly when the virtual machine was in Coherence mode, adds support for time zone sync between your Mac and macOS virtual machines, and fixes a bug that prevented the display of shared folder contents on Intel-based Macs. This will be the final Parallels Desktop version to support macOS 12 Monterey and earlier. ($99.99/$129.99 for Standard Edition, $119.99 annual subscription for Pro Edition, $149.99 annual subscription for Business Edition, upgrades available, free updates for subscribers, release notes, macOS 10.14.6+)
When I saw the description of this update, I was very excited. I bought a 2019 Mac Pro last year so that I could run Intel VMs, but that machine is very much the end of the line. Maybe someday I can run my Intel VMs on Apple Silicon!
Unfortunately I was not able to get this working on my M1 Air (16Gb memory). I copied one of my Intel VMs onto the M1 Air, and set CPUs=1 and memory=8Gb (both the maximum possible for Intel emulation). When I right-clicked on the Intel VM entry (which says "Not Compatible, as expected) I did not get the “Start Using Emulator” option. I noticed that emulation mode required UEFI mode rather than legacy BIOS mode. Parallels doesn’t offer that option in the VM settings, but a bit of searching revealed that I could open the VM package, then edit the config.PVS file, and set EFIenabled to 1 instead of 0. After doing this, I did have the the “Start Using Emulator” option!
Unfortunately, it still did not work. I am now getting an inscrutable message “Parallels Desktop does not support certain virtual devices for Intel-based virtual macines on Apple Silicon Macs.”
I’ve figured out why my Intel VM would not work. It had been configured to boot from a SCSI MBR drive. I converted the VM so that it was NVMe instead of SCSI, and GPT instead of MBR. Once I did that, I was able to boot the Intel VM. My VM with Oracle Personal Edition was so slow that it was unusable. I had a plain VM that did not have extra software installed. That was very, very slow, but at least the CPU load was not 100% at idle. I suppose this is not a surprise, given the 1CPU, 8Gb memory limitation. Still, it’s quite impressive to be able to run an Intel VM on Apple Silicon. If they can move past the 1CPU, 8Gb limit then I imagine performance could improve in a big way.
