14 DAY TRIAL // Parallels is spreading the word that its latest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac now supports Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview, as well as Apple’s own OS X 10.8 dubbed Mountain Lion.
Interested parties can download a free trial version of Parallels Desktop for Mac 7.0.15055, while existing users can update to the new build by selecting the Parallels Desktop menu and clicking Check for Updates.
According to its developers, “Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is a major upgrade to Parallels' award-winning software for running Windows on a Mac.”
In this particular release of Parallels Desktop for Mac (build 7.0.15055), the following new abilities have been added:
- Support for OS X Mountain Lion (experimental). - Support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview (experimental). - Download and install Windows 8 Consumer Preview right from the Parallels Wizard.
Not only can you test out Apple’s latest cat on your Snow Leopard or Lion Mac in a virtual machine (provided that you have an Apple Developer account), you can also grab the free Windows 8 build Microsoft put out for grabs and see what that Metro UI is all about.
After installing Parallels Desktop 7 on your Intel Mac, simply launch the application, go to the Parallels Desktop menu and select File, New and Windows 8 Consumer Preview in the Parallels New Virtual Machine Wizard. This will download and install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview automatically. It will only take a few clicks on your end.
Best of all, if Microsoft’s unstable Windows 8 beta crashes or corrupts files when it is running in a Parallels Desktop 7, you can simply delete the Windows 8 virtual machine and start over without any damage to your computer.
As for OS X Mountain Lion, developers will be delighted to know that Parallels now offers full virtualization support so they don’t need to boot to a different partition or hard drive.