Parallels Desktop and macOS Big Sur 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. Parallels Desktop 16 Brings macOS Big Sur Support, Multi-Touch Gestures, 20% Faster DirectX, and More Tuesday August 11, 2020 2:17 am PDT by Tim Hardwick Parallels Desktop 16 released today. Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac Fully Supports macOS Big Sur, Delivers Its Most Seamless and Robust Windows-on-Mac Experience PRESS RELEASE GlobeNewswire Nov. 20, 2020, 10:00 AM.
Guest blog post from Dmitry Geynisman, Product Manager at Parallels
For more than a decade, Parallels developed its proprietary drivers (aka system extensions) for running Windows and other OSes on top of the macOS. These drivers made Parallels Desktop the best virtualization solution, the fastest, and the most technologically advanced.
At the same time, for several years, Apple has been moving towards making macOS the most secure and reliable desktop OS (and I should say, Apple succeeded in many ways). One of the key aspects is not to let developers intrude on the OS kernel by loading those extensions (aka “kexts”), as those who have access to the kernel can do things at the very heart of your Mac, which may prove quite dangerous. In order to do that, Apple must replace 3rd-party kernel extensions with the native system APIs that ultimately enable the same product features, and that is massive engineering work even for such a big enterprise as Apple.

Since 2017, with the macOS High Sierra 10.13 release, Apple started to block 3rd-party kexts automatically, and users have had to enable them manually since. At that time, we published this blog post that can tell you even more about Parallels Desktop using system extensions.
In March 2020, with the release of macOS Catalina 10.15.4, Apple started to warn users that some of their apps (that use deprecated system extension) would “be incompatible with a future version of macOS” (read: with macOS Big Sur).
At WWDC20, Apple was quoted as saying that “System Extensions improve the reliability and security of macOS, and deprecated kernel extensions will not load by default in macOS Big Sur”. Eventually, to make Parallels Desktop fully compatible with the new macOS Big Sur 11.0, Parallels Engineering has gone through years of engineering work of rebuilding Parallels Desktop and its features using the new macOS system APIs. This extensive and time-intensive development resulted in the all-new Parallels Desktop, explicitly designed to work and integrate with new macOS Big Sur technologies, and at the same time, deliver performance and productivity improvements to benefit Parallels Desktop customers.
This scheme below visually describes the difference between the default Parallels Desktop modes on the corresponding macOS version. The old Parallels Desktop design using Parallels system extensions is shown on the left, and the newly-invented Parallels Desktop 16, using macOS Big Sur APIs, is shown on the right.
For now, our team continues to work on supporting both Parallels and Apple hypervisors and continues collaborating with Apple on implementing the rest of Parallels Hypervisor features to Apple Hypervisor. We recommend using Apple hypervisor, and if you notice any difference between Apple and Parallels hypervisors for your use case, please let us know.
Download a free trial of Parallels Desktop for Mac and try it out yourself.
The system requirements and supported guest operation systems (OSes) for Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac are fully detailed below. We encourage every potential or existing user to explore the requirements prior to downloading or purchasing Parallels® Desktop. Users may be pleasantly surprised at the incredible performance of Windows, Linux, and other popular OSes on their Mac with Parallels Desktop.
Supported Apple Mac hardware configurations:
Check your Mac hardware to ensure you can run Parallels Desktop without experiencing compatibility issues. Our team would love to make sure every user gets the most out of Parallels Desktop and the virtual machines (VMs) they create.
Important Note: Internet connection is required for product activation, updates and select future features.
Mac with Apple M1 chip
Only ARM versions of operating systems are supported.
Mac with Intel processors
*Only the version downloaded with the Parallels Desktop Installation Assistant
**Parallels Tools are not available for this operating system

Note: Parallels Desktop emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. We encourage users to download a free 14-day trial of Parallels Desktop first to install the OS 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 requires X Window System version 1.15-1.20 and Linux Kernel version 2.6.29-5.1.
Moving your PC?
Below are the Windows PC system requirements to move a PC to your Mac and use it as a Parallels Desktop VM (using Parallels Transporter Agent):
*To migrate Windows Vista or older, Transporter Agent from Parallels Desktop 13 should be used.
We sincerely hope this resource helps you navigate your experience with Parallels Desktop. Since 2006, Parallels has delivered excellence by being the #1 choice of Mac users to run Windows on Mac without rebooting. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help. The Parallels support team can be contacted on Facebook or Twitter, 24/7.
