Parallels Desktop 26 offers a lot to enterprise users, a little to consumers

The new version of Mac virtual machine software Parallels Desktop, which is most often used to run Windows applications on modern Macs, has just arrived. Parallels Desktop 26 has a lot to offer to the enterprise, but for most end users, it's a pretty minor upgrade mainly meant to prepare for the upcoming launch of the next version of macOS.

(It's worth noting that the "26" for this release represents a new versioning scheme meant to map closely to how Apple is now labeling its own operating system releases.)

With this release, the Parallels teams touts built-in support for the upcoming major OS releases from Apple and Microsoft: macOS 26 Tahoe and Windows 11 25H2. That includes changes to make Parallels play nice with macOS 26's new background process restrictions, particularly for Coherence mode.

This version of Parallels also allows Windows VMs to accurately read the available disk space on the Mac host, which means fewer bad surprises during app installs.

There aren't any major new consumer-oriented features in Parallels Desktop 26; what we get on that front is purely for enterprise users.

Specifically, that means SOC 2 Type II compliance, a deployment guide for rolling out single Windows applications to Mac devices without exposing users to the full VM environment, and the ability to monitor and manage Windows OS updates with Jamf.

Perhaps more importantly, IT administrators will get more granular centralized controls within the Parallels Desktop Enterprise Management Portal. They'll be able to tweak things like USB access and network modes for many users at once, which should streamline things quite a bit in some cases.

Unfortunately, that feature is not yet available—it's simply "coming soon," according to the Parallels team.

All told, this is one of the lighter Parallels annual updates in recent years, with an emphasis on just keeping things current while Apple makes changes to macOS.