Apple has at last released macOS Big Sur! First previewed at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2020, and then finally released to the world in November 2020, macOS Big Sur has had the longest beta development cycle of any macOS release in recent history.
My parallels 15 is working fine - used it Friday with no problems (with VS 2019). I left VMWare Fusion because of stuff like this. I find that now and then an errant Office process gets stuck at a high CPU% and brings the VM to a crawl until it is done (or killed). (nothing was changed on Opencore since Big Sur installation). SOLVED Despite using Parallels 16.0, it needs to be upgraded to 16.1.1 to get it running on Big Sur 11.1. Edited December 15, 2020 by asapreta. Reengineered with macOS Big Sur in mind plus the usual performance and feature enhancements, Parallels Desktop 16 makes it a snap to run other operating systems as virtual machines on your Mac.
The silver lining: engineers at Parallels® used this time to work in lockstep with their Apple counterparts in an effort to ensure that users will have the best possible Parallels Desktop® experience once migrated to macOS Big Sur.
The greatest amount of Parallels engineering work came in response to a significant change in the underpinnings of macOS Big Sur. As a Mac user, you may have seen dialogs (like the one shown in Figure 1) when using macOS Catalina or macOS Mojave.
The change in the macOS necessitated the re-architecture of Parallels Desktop (seen in Figure 2).
Macos Big Sur Parallels 15
While this figure illustrates what may appear to be a small change, it required the largest amount of engineering work in Parallels Desktop 16 and the equivalent of 25 man-years of engineering effort. This change means that even more of the performance and security of Parallels Desktop will be derived from Apple’s updates to the internal architecture of macOS going forward.
In addition to the work diagrammed in Figure 2, the Parallels engineers have added a number of new features to Parallels Desktop 16, and to bundled products Parallels Toolbox and Parallels Access, including:
- macOS Big Sur support
- 3D support in macOS VMs
Big Sur Parallels 15 Key
Learn more about these features in Video 1.
Parallels Desktop is ready for you when you decide to migrate to macOS Big Sur. Let us know in the comments when you will be upgrading, and then, how the migration went!
(C) 2020 Parallels International GmbH
Can you install the macOS Big Sur public beta in a VM?
Quick answer: Yes
The details: Now that Parallels Desktop 16 has been released, I am able to talk about this new version of Parallels Desktop that I have been using for about the last six months.
I was able to install the macOS Big Sur public beta in a VM. In fact, this is my preferred way to test out a new OS that is under development, and I have been doing so for years. OSes under development can have significant issues, and if you test them out in a VM there is no risk to your Mac.
Can macOS Big Sur be installed in a Parallels Desktop 16 VM?
Yes, it can, but an additional variable to consider is the host OS.
On a Catalina host
I encountered no issues at all, but it did take a while. A large portion of this time was downloading the “Install macOS Big Sur public beta” app—a 12.3GB download!
Normally, installing the Parallels Tools in a new OS under development is a mistake. The Parallels Tools are individually designed for each guest OS. While it is possible, having the Tools for an older OS work in a newer OS is unusual. Installing older versions of Tools can sometimes cause an OS to “lock up”. So, what I usually do is not install the Tools by default, make a copy of the Tool-less VM, and then see what happens when I install the Tools.
I did this for the Big Sur VM on my Catalina host, and the Parallels Tools did not cause any issues. Not everything worked perfectly, but it is quite usable.
On a Big Sur host
This went perfectly and everything I have tested works fine. However, I am not a professional tester, so I will wait to hear the experience of the engineers in the Parallels QA team.
Can macOS Big Sur be installed in a Parallels Desktop 15 VM?
On a Catalina host
The answer is “yes” this can be done, but there are several gotchas to worry about. My first three attempts did not succeed, but on the fourth try I did get it to work.
I will wait until macOS Big Sur is released to share images and videos of the installation and use of a macOS Big Sur VM in both Parallels Desktop 15 and Parallels Desktop 16. Perhaps some of the issues I encountered will be gone in the actual customer release of Big Sur.
If you have also started using macOS Big Sur with Parallels Desktop, please let us know about your experiences in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter.
Please also refer to this knowledge base article for further information.
Feel free to test Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac for 14 days for free.