How to emulate Windows on Macbook

Emulating Windows on mac (Macbook) helps marketers use tricks that require different virtual machine MAC addresses or help us use applications that are only available on Windows. Currently, Parallels and VMware are two excellent support software for this. In this article, Lucid Gen will provide documents and instructions for installing Parallels and VMware on Mac OS (Macbook) in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

Instructions to emulate Windows on Mac OS

What software should you use?

• Parallels: if you need a virtual machine that emulates Windows. I found Parallels are very smooth on Intel and ARM (M1, M2).
• VMware: if you need to clone multiple virtual machines to save space. But less smooth. Stable with Intel but not perfect with ARM (M1, M2).

Steps to emulate Windows on Mac OS:

Step 1: Turn off Gatekeeper and SIP on your Macbook first. Otherwise, you will not be able to install any externally downloaded software.

Step 2: Download the full document that Lucid Gen provides and extract it.

Step 3: Install the software, activate the key and use it according to the instructions of Lucid Gen.

Emulate Windows on Macbook with Parallels

Since version 18 and beyond, Parallels has worked great for both Intel and ARM chips (M1, M2). And the good thing is that we don’t need to download a separate Windows file anymore; Parallels will automatically download Windows 11.

Step 1: Extract the zip file on Mac and then drag the folder and ParallelsDesktop to the Desktop to avoid errors when installing. Then you open the file ParallelsDesktop and go to the next step.

Step 2: Double-click the Install icon and select Open when a popup appears to place the Windows emulator on Mac – Parallels.

If Parallels asks if you want to update to the latest version, turn it off, don’t update . Because updating to it may not be compatible with old MacOS or is not free to use.

Step 3: Click the Accept button to accept Parallels’ terms of use.

Step 4: Enter the password to open the computer when a popup asks for admin rights. Then you click OK to allow Parallels to use your Mac’s Desktop folder.

Step 5: Select Install Windows to emulate Windows on Mac.

Step 6: Wait for Parallels to load the correct version of Windows for your Mac and automatically create a virtual machine that emulates Windows.

Đây là màn hình cài đặt Windows quen thuộc, nhưng bây giờ chúng ta thấy nó trong ứng dụng Parallels.

At this point, you have successfully emulated Windows for MacBook. Let’s go to the last step to activate it for free forever.

Step 7: Activate Parallels for free forever by opening the Terminal application and entering the command line as follows.

cd Desktop/thuoc

chmod +x ./install.sh && sudo ./install.sh

When Terminal asks for the password, enter your computer login password and then Enter; note that while you are entering the password, Terminal will not display anything.

Permanent free activation for successful Parallels. Now you need to use it; no need to worry anymore.

Below is a video tutorial of the old version. How to install and activate it is much more complicated. When I have time, I will make a new video.

Emulate Windows on Mac OS with VMware

At the moment (2022), I find that VMware still does not support well on Mac ARM (M1, M2), so if you use Intel, use VMware will find it more stable than ARM.

Open the VMware installation file, and you will see a disk window like this. Drag and drop the VMware installation icon into the Applications folder, as shown below.

Then open the Applications folder, and you will see a VMware installation file just dropped in. Click to open that file.

A VMware Fusion window appears; double-click the center to launch the VMware installer.

There are persistent permissions requests due to VMware being an externally loaded application. Click OK to allow permissions.

To activate the VMware key, open the remaining file in the extracted folder to get the key. You select I have a license key for VMware Fusion and click Continue.

You continue to choose the VMware version; choose the Professional version for it to be full of features.

Then you give VMware permission and click OK, Done, to go to the next step.

After that, continuous windows asking for access appear; click the OK button and open System Preferences.

The Security & Privacy window appears. You click on the lock image below, enter the machine login password and click unlock, then turn on the checkmark for VMware, and you’re done.

When selecting the VMware installation method (Select the Installation Method), choose to default to Install from disc or image and click Continue.

Next, drag and drop the Windows file you downloaded into the VMware installer and click Continue.

Please select the version of Windows 10 you want; for example, if you choose Windows 10 Pro, the rest of the information is unnecessary because we need to emulate Windows on the Macbook to use it quickly.

Click Continue Without Key always; Windows without a key can still use it, but that’s okay.

In the memory integration section (Integration), you have two options to consider as follows:

• More Seamless: Windows emulator on mac can access folders on your Macbook. Convenient for file sharing between macOS and Windows. If you often need macOS files, choose this one.
• More Isolated: Windows emulator on mac will only interfere with its folders and cannot interfere with the folders of the Macbook. Very standalone, but you can share macOS files by dragging and dropping macOS messages onto the emulator’s Windows desktop.

You review the configuration information of VMware’s mac emulator windows and click Finish to complete.

Then, you wait about 5 minutes for VMware to start installing Windows on the virtual machine. Here is our final result—a virtual machine running the Windows operating system right on the screen of the Macbook.

To clone the number of virtual machines, right-click on some of the installed virtual machines (Windows 10) and choose one of these two options:

• Create Full Clone: ​​This is to clone another virtual machine completely independent of the original virtual machine. The same memory consumption as the original virtual machine. Smoother to use.
• Create Linked Clone: ​​This is to clone another virtual machine but use the resources of the original virtual machine, saving more space for each clone. But sometimes annoying because they have to re-sync some help to the original virtual machine. Less smooth operation.

Note: creating multiple versions of Create Full Clone will take up a lot of memory on your device. You should only make 1-2 such copies.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

Each virtual machine has its own MAC address, which is the advantage of a virtual machine that emulates Windows on mac. The downside of virtual machines, in general, is that it’s slow and laggy. So if you want to use genuine Windows to be smoother, please refer to the article on how to install Windows 10 for Macbook.