It hasn’t been all that long since Microsoft officially announced the next major update to its wildly popular Windows desktop operating system. With Windows 11, the company is welcoming a lot of big changes to the mix, some major polish across the UI, and much more. And support is in the works for macOS, too.
But not from Microsoft, obviously. That would be awkward. (Though, quite the bold step, Microsoft!) No, support for Microsoft’s competing desktop OS on Apple’s computer’s is in the works from a different company altogether. As first reported today by iMore, the team over at Parallels has confirmed that it is already hard at work on bringing Windows 11 to macOS in the future.
That is good news for folks who are already using Windows 10 on their macOS-powered machine, but who want to get their hands on Microsoft’s new version at some point in the future. Unfortunately, the bad news is that we don’t know when, exactly, Parallels will launch that support.
For what it’s worth, Windows 11 doesn’t actually launch for supported PCs until sometime later this year.
Here’s Parallel’s SVP of Engineering and Support, Nick Dobrovolsky on the matter:
Since Windows 11 has just been announced recently, the Parallels Engineering team is waiting for the official Windows 11 Insider Preview build to start studying changes introduced in the new OS to deliver full compatibility in future Parallels Desktop updates.
There is a silver lining, though. Right now, with Parallels version 16, that compatibility software is built for macOS Big Sur — the current version of macOS. But macOS Monterey is also in the works, with a launch date expected in the fall. So the team at Parallels is developing Windows 11 support for macOS Monterey, so that both versions are supported right out of the gate. Meaning, if you want to use Windows 11 in Parallels on a Mac, you hopefully won’t have to restrict yourself to staying on a previous version of Apple’s desktop OS to make it work.
Are you looking forward to working with Windows 11 on your Mac?