Parallels 17.1 Weds macOS Monterey With Windows 11 on M1 Macs

Apple has yet to release macOS Monterey for its desktops and notebooks, but Parallels Desktop 17.1 is already available for the upcoming operating system. The new software comes just days before Apple's event on October 18, where the company is expected to launch macOS Monterey along with next-generation MacBook Pro laptops. Also, Parallels 17.1 boosts Windows performance on Macs.

Parallels Desktop 17 virtualization software released in August already had general support for macOS Monterey and Windows 11 both on x86 and Apple Silicon Mac, but since neither operating systems were officially released at that time, it was not clear how the final versions of the OSes will work with the program. At this time Parallels claims that Parallels Desktop 17.1 now fully supports Apple's upcoming OS as well as Windows 11. Furthermore, it is now possible to copy and paste between macOS Monterey and a virtual machine. 

Among other improvements, Parallels notes increased graphics performance for numerous Windows games, including (but not limited to): World of Warcraft, Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, Tomb Raider 3, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, World of Tanks, and Raft.   

Last but not least, Parallels Desktop 17.1 adds support for VirGL in Virtio GPU to enable Linux 3D acceleration out of the box on all supported Macs.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.