Parallels Desktop for Mac

Overall stability and security issues and includes the following additions and improvements:

General

• Fixed: New virtual machines under Free Systems were not available with the prompt "To get the list of available systems, please connect your Mac to the internet", even when an internet connection was available.
• Fixed: The Install Assistant could get stuck near the end of setting up a new Windows 11 virtual machine and never finish. It now completes reliably.
• Fixed: Parallels Desktop incorrectly showed a license expiry warning shortly after a renewal. Your license status now reflects correctly after renewing.
• Fixed: Guest virtual machines would receive invalid DNS responses under certain conditions, affecting various applications.

Windows virtual machines

• Updated: The default Windows 11 image available through Get Windows 11 from Microsoft is now the latest 25H2 build.
• Fixed: The Japanese keyboard layout was not detected correctly, leading to unexpected input behavior for Japanese users.
• Fixed: Windows 11 installation could stall partway through and never finish.
• Fixed: Microsoft Outlook Classic crashed after adding an Exchange email account.
• Fixed: Git Bash failed to launch after being installed in a Windows 11 virtual machine.
• Fixed: The MSYS2 installer crashed and could not complete installation inside a Windows virtual machine.
• Fixed: Running graphically intensive applications or games could cause the virtual machine to become unresponsive and freeze Parallels Desktop entirely, requiring a full restart of the Mac to recover.
• Fixed: Windows could crash or display visual glitches caused by an instability in the Windows Desktop Window Manager.
• Fixed: Files from Windows virtual machines could not be opened directly in macOS applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Preview after updating the Mac to macOS 26.4.
• Fixed: Copying and pasting files between a Windows virtual machine and the macOS desktop stopped working after updating the Mac to macOS 26.4.
• Security: Updates Secure Boot keys to the Microsoft 2023 certificate chain for both new and existing Windows 11 virtual machines.

Linux virtual machines

• Fixed: Linux virtual machines lost internet connectivity after switching between network modes (such as Shared and Bridged) or after disconnecting and reconnecting the network adapter. Previously, restoring the connection required restarting the VM.

For the complete list of changes across all Parallels Desktop 26 updates, see KB 123851.

What was deprecated in Parallels Desktop 1.26.3

According to the statistics from the users who participate in the Parallels Customer Experience program, some product features are used very seldom or not at all. To focus our resources on frequently used features and further enhancements, we have decided to either stop supporting them or completely remove them from Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Below is the list of features that are no longer supported and will be removed – not in version 1.26.3, but in future major versions of Parallels Desktop for Mac App Store Edition:

• Mac & Windows integration: "Open in Mac" for HTTP links, "Open in Edge" Safari plugin, "Share On" menu, "Send with Windows Email App".
• VM configuration & disk management: Free Up Disk Space menu, "Reclaim" button & disk bar, Maintenance options, SATA location selector.
• Display & input: Picture in Picture mode, Touch Bar support, Secondary/middle mouse click shortcuts, Lock icon to block UI changes in VM config or Parallels Desktop preferences.
• Devices & account: Virtual printer device, Sign in with Facebook, Virtual machine templates.