But VirtualBox merely displays a clunky-looking menu, with an unhelpful cartoon picture of a penguin with a toolbox, and leaves you to figure out what to do next. Parallels even gives you download links for Windows and open-source systems. Both guide you through the steps needed to create a new virtual machine. Then you must restart and run VirtualBox again.īy contrast, rival apps Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion have different setup systems. The installer sends you to the Apple System Preferences app to grant permission to a VirtualBox extension that lets your guest Windows system exchange data with your host Mac system. Next, you run the installer package from the downloaded disk image. (Opens in a new window) Read Our VMware Fusion Review I'll list some alternative methods for running Windows apps on Apple Silicon at the end of this review. If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, don't even think about using VirtualBox, because it won't run at all on an M1-based Mac, not even with Apple's Rosetta 2 translation layer that makes many Intel-based apps run on Apple Silicon. I'll mention other low-cost and no-cost ways to run Windows apps on an Intel Mac, but VirtualBox may be the one that best fits your needs. But unless you need the fast performance and easy setup that the commercial products offer, and if you're willing to put up with multiple annoyances before Windows runs the way you want it, VirtualBox can get the job done. No-cost methods aren't always the best ones, and commercial products like Parallels Desktop ($79.99) and VMware Fusion (also $79.99) do a faster and better job than VirtualBox of emulating Windows on a Mac. VirtualBox isn't the best way to run Windows apps-or a complete Windows system-on an Intel Mac, but it's the only method that costs nothing, uses open-source software, and is reasonably simple to set up.

Less powerful graphics than the competition.

No easy support for macOS guest systems.

Many features require expert-level skills.

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Virtualbox